Discovering How the US Became a "Torturing Democracy"

Related Post: Fox News Anchor: "We Do Not F****** Torture!"

By coincidence, as the latest furour over torture escalated, I was writing chapers on the early months of the Bush Administration. That, in part, is why I have been unsettled by the spin, diversions, and outright lies of former Bush officials: the evidence offers no gray area in which to hide. The Bush Administration authorised torture, under the label "enhanced interrogation", and persisted in that authorisation even though there was no evidence of its effectiveness, let alone its legality or morality.

One of the sources I have been using is the website for the documentary Torturing Democracy. It is invaluable for its interviews, documents, and commentary (and the full documentary is on-line). A few of many notable examples:

Richard Armitage, former special forces officer, Deputy Secretary of State in the Bush Administration: "There is no question in my mind -- there's no question in any reasonable human being, there shouldn't be, that [waterboarding] is torture."

Moazzam Begg, detainee in Camp Bagram in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay:

The CIA, the military intelligence, and the FBI had decided in May 2002 to begin my interrogation in earnest, which included during that period me being tied, "hogtied" as I call it, also as they call it in America, with my hands tied behind my back to my ankles and being left like that for hours on end at various points....They brought photographs of my family, which they'd taken off my laptop computer, which they'd seized in Pakistan, which include pictures of my children that they waved in front of me and asked me, "Where do you think they are? Do you think they're safe? What do you think happened to them? Do you think you're going to see them again?" And during this period hearing the sounds of a woman screaming. The implication of which was it was my wife being tortured next door; they didn't say as much, but they didn't have to.

Martin Lederman, Department of Justice Legal Adviser:

The purpose of the torture memo [of August 2002] was to give the CIA absolute assurance that no matter what it did, in terms of interrogation, that it would never be subject to any criminal culpability. None of its agents would ever be exposed to criminal culpability under domestic law, putting aside foreign tribunals.

Michael Gelles, Chief Psychologist, Naval Criminal Investigative Service:

We know that people who are tortured provide information. We just don't believe that in most cases that information is accurate and reliable. Because people will provide information to stop the discomfort.

Video and Transcript: Guantánamo Lawyers Facing US Jail Time?

Clive Stafford Smith and Ahmad Ghappour, lawyers for a number of Guantánamo Bay detainees, have been summoned to court over a letter they sent to President Obama detailing the torture their client Binyam Mohamed claims he faced. Stafford Smith and Ghappour face charges of 'unprofessional conduct' and revealing classified evidence, and will attend a hearing in Washington, DC on May 11. Stafford Smith has called the charges "frivolous", pointing out that all information in the letter, classified or otherwise, had been redacted by censors, leaving only the subject line "In re: torture of Binyam Mohamed". Like Stafford Smith I'd also question the sanity a law that makes revealing classified information about Guantántamo Bay to the President of the United States a crime.



AMY GOODMAN: This last story, an unusual development in the case of Binyam Mohamed, the British resident recently released after seven years in US custody, where he claims he was repeatedly tortured, first in a secret CIA prison, later at Guantanamo. Binyam Mohamed’s lawyers, Clive Stafford Smith and Ahmad Ghappour, could face six months in a US prison, The Guardian newspaper revealed last week, because of a letter they sent to President Obama explaining their client’s allegations of torture by US agents.

Officials from the Department of Defense who monitor and censor communication between Guantanamo prisoners and their lawyers filed a complaint against Mohamed’s lawyers for “unprofessional conduct” and for revealing classified evidence to the President. The memo the lawyers sent to Obama was completely redacted except for the title. It had urged the President to release evidence of Mohamed’s alleged torture into the public domain. Clive Stafford Smith and Ahmad Ghappour have been summoned before a D.C. court on May 11th.

I’m joined now in these last few minutes by Clive Stafford Smith, director of the British legal charity Reprieve.

Welcome to Democracy Now! Clive Stafford Smith, you’re afraid of being arrested if you come into this country?

CLIVE STAFFORD SMITH: No, I’m going to come to the country, because I want to face the charges. I mean, the charges are, to my mind, frivolous, because—it may be confusing to your listeners when you say that we supposedly revealed classified evidence and then say it was all censored—it was all censored. There wasn’t one iota of classified evidence revealed. So the real question, I guess, here is why the government continues to cover up the evidence of Binyam Mohamed’s torture.

AMY GOODMAN: But please explain, because I think this can be very confusing, what it is they said you did in this letter to President Obama. You are Binyam Mohamed’s lawyer.

CLIVE STAFFORD SMITH: Well, I wrote a letter to President Obama and attached to it a memorandum that was going to originally be the evidence that showed that Binyam was tortured. But that evidence we had to submit through the classification review process. So, ultimately, the two-page memo of evidence that Binyam had been tortured was all redacted, as you mentioned, so it was all blacked out. I mean, even to the President it was blacked out. And the only thing left in it was, you know, “In re: torture of Binyam Mohamed.”

What we were trying to do was get President Obama the information he needs to make a judgment as to whether the US should continue to cover up this evidence of torture. And it’s paradoxical that the President of the United States is not being permitted to make that judgment in a meaningful way.

AMY GOODMAN: So you will come to the United States for this May 11th hearing?

CLIVE STAFFORD SMITH: Oh, my goodness, yes. I mean, I am, I will say, offended by this process, but nothing would keep me away. I want to clear both mine and Ahmad’s name. And I want the real issue to be why the government continues to cover up the evidence of Binyam’s torture, because how can it be that we, as Americans, are not allowed to know when our government officials have committed criminal offenses against people like Binyam Mohamed? That just makes no sense at all. And if, indeed, someone should be on trial here, it should be the people who tortured Binyam.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to leave it there. Clive Stafford Smith, thank you very much for this update.

CLIVE STAFFORD SMITH: Thank you.
Video of the exchange on Democracy Now! as well as the transcript are available here.

Bagram Inmates To Challenge Detention

Josh Mull points us to this story, which suggests that inmates at the Bagram Internment Facility may soon be able to follow Guantánamo detainees in challenging their detention in US courts:

Although the Supreme Court has ruled that detainees at the US naval base in Cuba have the right to challenge their detention, the government had argued that inmates held at the US air base in Bagram, Afghanistan did not have such a constitutional right.

Judge John Bates, however, ruled the Bagram detainees faced essentially the same situation as the Guantanamo detainees, being held indefinitely without due process.

"Bagram detainees who are not Afghan citizens, who were not captured in Afghanistan, and who have been held for an unreasonable amount of time" may invoke the right to habeas corpus, Bates wrote, referring to the legal right dating back centuries.

If it stands, the ruling could have far-reaching implications for how the US government handles terror suspects and for its operations at Bagram, where about 600 detainees are held.

Full article here.

UPDATE: Miss Universe Disappears in Guantanamo Bay!

Or rather her blog has....

We revealed yesterday that Miss Universe 2008, Dayana Mendoza, had written a loving blog about her visit to Guantanamo Bay: "I didn’t want to leave, it was such a relaxing place, so calm and beautiful." After we posted, other media such as the New York Times and Fox News picked up on the story.

Surprisingly, given the eloquence of Mendoza's observations, "We also met the Military dogs, and they did a very nice demonstration of their skills....We visited the Detainees camps and we saw the jails, where they shower, how the recreate themselves with movies, classes of art, books," the Miss Universe organization has become very shy about the episode.

The blog is gone, replaced with that statement from "Paula M. Shugart, President of the Miss Universe Organization":

The Miss Universe Organization has had a longstanding relationship with the USO (United Service Organizations). All three titleholders (Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA) have participated in many USO goodwill tours to visit the men and women in uniform who serve our country around the world.

As part of the USO’s entertainment program, which boosts the morale of U.S. troops, they have traveled to many locations and many bases around the globe including Iraq, Afghanistan, Japan, Korea and most recently, Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, where the U.S. has maintained a naval base since 1898.

Dayana Mendoza’s comments on her blog were in reference to the hospitality she received while meeting the members of the U.S. military and their families who are stationed in Guantánamo.

The Miss Universe Organization echoes the mission of the USO, which is to lift the spirits of U.S.troops and their families wherever they serve. We will continue to show our appreciation and express our gratitude to the military personnel who serve our nation.

Unfortunately, Shugart offers no insight into the reaction of Guantanamo's recreating detainees to their entertainment by Mendoza.