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Torture Memo: As Long As You Don't Keep The Guy Awake For More Than 11 Days, It's Fine
Here's a taste of the Bush administration's legal rationale, exemplified in one excerpt from the 2002 OLC memo written by Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, about the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, a high-ranking al Qaeda member:
Sleep deprivation may be used. You have indicated that your purpose in using this technique is to reduce the individual's ability to think on his feet and, through the discomfort associated with lack of sleep, to motivate him to cooperate. The effect of such sleep deprivation will generally remit after one or two nights of uninterrupted sleep. You have informed us that your research has revealed that, in rare instances, some individuals who are already predisposed to psychological problems may experience abnormal reactions to sleep deprivation. Even in those cases, however, reactions abate after the individual is permitted to sleep. Moreover, personnel with medical training are available to and will intervene in the unlikely event of an abnormal reaction. You have orally informed us that you would not deprive Zubaydah of sleep for more than eleven days at a time and that you have previously kept him awake for 72 hours, from which no mental or physical harm resulted. (our itals)
If you have time, comb through the memos yourselves (they're here) and let us know what else you find.
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Josh
Zachary
The overriding rationale seems more like "If he doesn't die, it's fine. And even if he does, hey, there are too many of those brown people anyway."
April 16, 2009 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Even worse, in the 8/1/2002, the final workaround for waterboarding not being torture (p. 16) is "specific intent," meaning if you don't intend it to be torture, it isn't. Basically, the Bush legal strategy to legitimize torture was "ponies!"
April 17, 2009 1:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
personnel with medical training are available to and will intervene in the unlikely event of an abnormal reaction.
What kind of medical professional gets involved with torturing people? Presumably military medical folks, but who knows. Not America's finest hour.
April 16, 2009 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
It depends on how you define medical training. I have undergone first aid, self aid buddy aid, and combat lifesaver courses. I am certified in a mild degree of medical practice... you get my drift?
April 16, 2009 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's already a number of licensed medical professionals in deep shit over this. As contractors more than a couple doctors and shrinks assisted in the "interrogation" of Gitmo detainees and their licensing boards and ethics pannels are looking into whether their even being present for the "interrogation" violated their oaths. I would like to cite the stories on this but I can't seem to find the posts. I know TPMDC had a couple different posts along these lines in the past months.
April 16, 2009 5:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope the medical "professionals" (and I use the term loosely) ARE in trouble with their licensing boards and ethics panels. It's horrific to think of doctors or nurses being a part of torture. "First do no harm" is the basic tenet of medical ethics...how can any doctor or nurse or medic live with their conscience if they have been part of this. They deserve prosecution by the DOJ.
April 16, 2009 9:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the President's right. Did you read his statement? A lot of the interrogators getting their hands dirty would only have done it on assurances that what they were doing was legal and they would be protected.
Besides... Disobeying Orders WILL get you in much more hot water than it does civilians, up to and including a criminal record and dishonourable discharge. Regardless of whether you feel it was for humanitarian reasons. Suing for wrongful termination doesn't typically go real well.
To face that penalty to protect someone you're pretty sure is scum who would kill you if they had the chance... well. I can't think of many who'd make that call when push came to shove.
Prosecute the people who GAVE the orders.
April 17, 2009 2:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
If you are an accountant and commit fraud, the fact that your boss told you to do it doesn't lessen your guilt, nor should it lessen your punishment. Similarly, if you commit war crimes or crimes against humanity you are responsible and accountable for your actions.
The issue here is one of control. It is impossible (or close to it) to walk the line between soldiers being required to both follow orders to the letter and provide their own moral and legal compasses. But with the tyrannical able to seize control of our military, what options do we have? One of the two requirements must be relaxed.
The people who need to have the book thrown at them are those who gave the orders and created the sham legal defenses. However, those who performed the torture need to be brought into account as well. The "following orders" aspect should be taken into account with sentencing but to look the other way is unacceptable.
This puts our soldiers and intelligence agents in a terribly unfair position. However, morality is about making the difficult decisions. The result of prosecuting those who engaged in torture will likely be an enormous recruiting problem. So we have to decide what's more important to us, strength or morality.
I understand that it is very easy for me to prattle on about morality wearing my slippers and sitting in my living room, while for others the consequences of these decisions are much more visceral. I also understand that it is very unlikely that those who engaged in torture will be brought to justice. However, if the message we send is that those who refuse to torture will be punished and those who torture will have no consequences then it is clear what the actions will be next time a soldier is ordered to torture a prisoner. If we are serious about respecting humanity and the rules of war then we need to make our military system reflect those goals.
April 17, 2009 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
They have full medical staffs on these bases where they are housing these prisoners. They are all well trained and can handle anything a normal doctor in the states would have to undergo, many times a lot more, because they are trained to aid people in times of combat.
April 17, 2009 3:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is exactly what I expected would be discovered. Once basic rights to legal protection are dissolved, then there are no safeguards against abuse. These detainees had no right to an attorney, outside communication, and there was no oversight for their protection outside of a loose devil may care set of protocols.
It's horrible... and it's about time we were exposed to the truth.
April 16, 2009 5:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
The president has said we will not prosecute anyone who did it.
This seems to apply to principles as well.
Outside Spain, of course.
April 16, 2009 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Check the Article 16 memo of 5/30/05 at pp. 37-38, where it uses the military's SERE program to justify waterboarding.
In short, the memo argues that because we waterboard members of our own military (as part of the SERE program), it must be OK to for us to waterboard the bad guys.
April 16, 2009 5:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
That logic is twisted. The difference between SERE and real capture is that SERE has a time limit. After a brief period, you are released. No matter how bad it is (and it isn't good by any stretch) you know that you are getting out. Real prisoners being systematically abused and tortured don't have that luxury, otherwise known as HOPE.
April 16, 2009 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with CN. In the first memo, at least, a good amount of time is spent justifying the specific techniques mentioned (e.g., waterboarding) based on the fact that we use some of those techniques on our own personnel during training.
But, in reply to Zipperupus, the argument that I'm most familiar with is that waterboarding, period, is torture. If it's not torture, so long as it's accompanied by a time limit and knowledge of that time limit by the victim, then that makes that familiar argument at best shallow and at worst completely wrong.
If we had informed Zubaydah that he would be waterboarded for exactly three weeks, at which point it would stop, should carrying out that "technique" still be considered "torture"?
April 16, 2009 8:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm going to say it, regardless of getting banned or no:
Hey CIA, fuck you.
April 16, 2009 5:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am reaching an event horizon. There is as yet no clarity as to the exact trajectory, but it has been trending nearer, not further away, from the singularity imposed upon us by the previous criminal enterprise posing as a presidency.
By not holding CIA operatives accountable for the above-mentioned adolescent fantasies, the DoJ sets aside Nuremberg in which just following orders didn't hunt.
Unless Obama intends to buy the cooperation of the CIA to nab the principles, the trajectory is perilous indeed.
"Looking forward" while the stern is under water is not a promising sign.
Obama is fortunate the loyal opposition currently emerges from small cars by the dozens to squeak irrelevancies in their piping clown voices.
And honest law-and-order conservative bent on turning states evidence agin W is the GOPs only hope of escaping the wilderness.
Because Congress does not seem prepared to do it either.
A narrow window for this trajectory indeed....
April 16, 2009 5:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
April 16, 2009 5:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why, thank you, and you are, of course, correct.
I really like most of the other moves he's made. But so far it's been the About Schmitt of presidencies, in which we go on a grand adventure of the perfectly known and comfortable, only to emerge a tautology of his candidate self.
But all the rotten cores of the previous admin (and before) are alive and well through this moment, and so are they likely to remain.
It is actually a relief to achieve a healthy post-election skepticism of, well, everything governmental.
April 16, 2009 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am trying to understand how sparing the operatives hurts the cause. It isn't as black/white as Nuremburg, and there has to be the political perception that the DOJ is after the architects of the torture policy... otherwise there is a risk (substantial) that the media can derail the investigation because it is a "partisan witch hunt that punishes good Americans."
April 16, 2009 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
At what point do we stop sparing and start prosecuting? How many more exceptions for the benefit of some straw man's fragile political perceptions do we make?
As for black/white Nuremberg, this sounds like more excuse-making. Tell it to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have died in a dishonorable aggression.
See, here's the thing: there is virtually no honor in what any person in active combat is doing today. It was stolen from them when what they were (and are) told has been based on lie after lie after lie. At some point, the soldier's duty is to put the gun down and say I will not fight a dishonorable war based on an illegal order.
All Obama does is continue this awful shame. The longer he does it, the more he owns it.
As someone so eloquently reflected earlier, FUCK the CIA.
April 16, 2009 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
We have nothing to say to each other. I continue to serve honorably, and nothing has been taken away from me.
Further, the Iraqi occupation has little to do with the torture... the United States has conducted it in other places and on other peoples. I don't even know why you are mentioning it other than to dig at me.
What I am telling YOU is that the public will not abide prosecuting a host of little fish. What matters is damning evidence that torture was orchestrated in contravention to national/international law by Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and George W. Bush.
Anyhow, that's enough. I won't discuss it any longer with you after you have maligned my profession.
April 16, 2009 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
By refusing to debate with those with whom you disagree, you continue to serve the dishonorable interests of those you deride.
Silence = Death.
The mental state of "being maligned" is a choice. Nothing I said was a personal dig at you; I have no clue who you are or what your profession is, nor does it change an iota of what I said. Who are you, again, and why do I care?
Turning your back on me solves nothing. Turning your back on known war criminals speaks for itself.
April 16, 2009 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
First, look at my profile. Who I am and what I do is right there for you to read. Second, we are not necessarily in disagreement. I want the policymakers who implemented this disgusting crap to be prosecuted and punished. Where we differ is in approach.
You are using the with us or against us logic of Bush in placing me in the enemy camp. The reason why I want to walk away from this dialogue is because you have the MORALLY CORRECT opinion but you have ZERO nuance. Every problem is a nail, and your superior moral virtue is a hammer.
I want Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush to frog march. They are the root of the problem. Prosecuting lower operatives at the expense of the greater criminals will simply be a rearrangement of furniture.
The truth is now out in the court of public opinion. How about celebrating that instead of rending your garments because it does not satisfy your sense of outrage?
April 16, 2009 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am currently caring for my 6 wk old newborn. He is not sleeping at night due to some medical issues and his 4 yr old brother keeps me up all day. As a result, I get little to no sleep on a very regular basis.
I can say with great certainty that 11 days without sleep would send anyone to the looney bin. I'm ready to admit to being an Al Qaeda operative and Bin Laden's second in command after just 4 nights of this.
April 16, 2009 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
This guy is a Federal Judge!?!? Jeebus!!!
April 16, 2009 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, whatever. Obviously no one is going to do anything about it (which is what we've been saying for eight years). I'm "Voting For Change" in 2012.
April 16, 2009 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
If there was ever any doubt that George W. Bush was a moral pervert, this should settle it. For the Repubs to put that guy up as their candidate says a lot about the morals of that party, too. But, unfortunately, the next step in that logic is exceedingly painful for our country.
April 16, 2009 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is an opening for a law and order conservative to use the law to help open this up. It's one of the exceedingly few and narrow pathways out of the wilderness in anything less than a generation.
Too bad such a beast exists only in the Forest of Unicorns, Pixies, and Other Unmet Expectations...
Let us us hope an exonerated CIA is now willing to turn the screws on the principles.
April 16, 2009 7:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you Barack Obama for having the courage to release these memos and let the cards fall where they may. You have renewed my faith in you.
April 16, 2009 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Remember that movie with Jack Nicholson where he plays the military leader and he gets nailed for ordering a 'code red'. He says 'you can't handle the truth'. It ends with two men of lower rank being dishonorably discharged for performing a 'code red' even though it was an 'order' because it was wrong. I think some of the same ideas apply here.
Taking no action is unacceptable. I am happy about the actions Spain is taking to try to hold those involved to some level accountability. If we want restore honor to our country and our military, we must engage accountability and demonstrate that 'america is a country of laws and as such does not hold its leadership as 'above the law'. No accountability = no credibility, no integrity, and weakness i.e. more vulnerability.
Agreements we make with other countries are worthless if we feel we have a right to ignore them arbitrarily.
April 16, 2009 7:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
If we are going to use films to guide us through reality, I suggest Death and the Maiden in this situation.
But it doesn't have a nice, feel goody "there's an officer on the deck" ending to it. It has a stunning finality of the inherent injustice of life ending to it.
It took many, many years for the Chilean people to finally get Pinochet. And not to excuse what the Bush Administration did, but what was done in Chile was done to Chileans and was far, far worse.
April 16, 2009 8:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's one I don't get (from the first memo):
"You have informed us that other services [with the exception of the Navy, I believe] ceased use of the waterboard because it was so successful as an interrogation technique, but not because of any concerns over any harm, physical or mental, caused by it."
If it's an extremely successful technique, then perhaps the logic was to cancel it for training, because you simply couldn't teach a trainee how to resist it.
Thoughts?
April 16, 2009 8:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Three minutes of Steve Doocy and I'll say anything.
April 16, 2009 11:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is pure evil.
I want a trial. I'd like the ICC. But, barring that, here.
People need to go to jail for this.
April 17, 2009 3:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here's a problem with this mentality that, they walk scot-free-if-they-have-a-legal-memo-in- the-file mentality.
It just means you get a corrupted lawyer like Gonzales or John Yoo to paper the file for you. They do their thing, then everybody walks. They walk too: they were lawyers acting in good faith, doing their best, and if you happen to disagree with what they concluded, well, folks may disagree. It doesn't imply *FOR ONE MOMENT* that their intentions were any other than the *highest*!
I'm not really disagreeing with the Obama policy, I understand the rationale, but this is an issue that should be considered going forward.
April 17, 2009 5:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
I remind everyone that Rove had a large influence over everything the shrub administration did. Rove follows Machiavelli. One of M's tenants is that you should do what you want boldly and without regard to the possible consequences because, rarely if ever, will there actually be any consequences. The bold will set the terms and no one will dare hold them accountable.
That mentality is clearly reflected here. They don't expect anyone to hold them accountable for these evil acts! The philosophy upon which this is predicated says they won't!
Now, I believe Obama wants to follow a sort of quasi South African reconciliation model here and that is why he's asking for no punishment. And, to his credit, you usually don't want to punish the low level flunkies that carried out orders as they end up being the only ones punished then, not the ones who ordered it. You sort of loose the impetus after seeing one or two flunkies nailed to the cross and grow sick of the spectacle and ignore it. Systematic desensitization. But jurisprudence shows us that in order for those guilty of instigating these horrors to pay the penalty they should, you must prosecute all significant participants you can get your hands on, just as was done in Nuremberg. This is why, in my mind, the Simon Wiesenthal and people like him are necessary. There are crimes that are so abhorrent that NO LAW OR GOVERNMENT should ever protect them from prosecution. I do not think Obama understands this. He wants to balance the chance to heal from these wounds inflicted by shrub with the need for openness. But he cannot. If left alone, these wounds will fester and reopen later with more virulent results. People will torture again in our government and it won't be just "foreign islamists" but our very own citizens too, and not just one citizen by mistake but anyone who dare opposes to openly future shrubs.
Email Obama on this and tell him this is the case.
April 17, 2009 9:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is a view that many of you don't have. It could be because I come from a military family, or because I am Republican, or a litany of other things, who knows!
The tactics used while interrogating these suspected "terrorist" are meant to be uncomfortable, they are in a prison, not on vacation. The tactics used so not cause long-term harm and furthermore (in almost all cases) do not inflict physical harm. It is all physiological. That is why they use "simulated drowning" (i.e. water boarding), sleep deprivation, loud music, bright lights, etc. It's trying to make them uncomfortable enough to tell us what we need to know.
I am all for physiologically extreme/intense interrogation tactic. They do much worse to our soldiers!
I agree with Obama, in not charging Bush officials. The CIA operatives, first off were following orders (i.e. acting in good faith)... and the Bush officials were doing what they felt was necessary to protect the country, and thus far it has worked. Have we been attacked since 9/11 by a terrorist or terrorist organization? No.
I also want to remind you that many of the suspected terrorist we released were once again found committing acts of "terror" against civilians and U.S. troops on the ground. The number 1 goal is the safety of our country and our soldiers, and that should never change.
April 17, 2009 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink