G
Gandalf Grey
Guest
Torture Tapes are the Watergate of Our Times
By Brent Budowsky
Created Dec 19 2007 - 2:30pm
As I write these words on the morning of Wednesday, Dec. 19, high- and
low-level officials of the Bush administration involved in torture, and the
destruction of the torture tapes, are consulting their criminal lawyers as
The New York Times reports that highest-level lawyers in the administration
had discussed the destruction of the tapes.
I predict there will soon be new stories about more torture tapes that were
destroyed and new stories about more high-level officials that were either
tainted or corrupted by this scandal, and others who opposed this travesty
who will ultimately testify about who they approached to attempt to prevent
it.
Washington and America will momentarily ask once again: What did the
president and vice president know, and when did they know it?
In an administration facing an ocean of scandal on multiple and multiplying
fronts, this scandal above all will be the Watergate of our times because it
involves extremely probable crimes of torture, extremely probable
obstructions of justice, and a steady stream of revelations that will only
escalate until the inevitable special prosecutor is named.
Congress should, and I predict ultimately will, take the decisive action of
seeking evidence, and if necessary file the great contempt case of the Bush
years that will be defined clearly and specifically as follows:
Can executive privilege be claimed to hide acts that would be violations of
criminal law?
I predict the answer of this Supreme Court, and any Supreme Court, will be
unequivocally "no."
Even a mass pardon by the president, which I have predicted and predict
again here, will not solve their problem, because he would have to name so
many recipients of pardons, and so many potential crimes that would be
pardoned, that it would be both ridiculous and logistically impossible.
What follows is the column I wrote in The Hill newspaper published on
Tuesday, Dec. 18 before this new information came to light, and before new
revelations about more destruction of more torture tapes that I predict are
coming soon:
In unprecedented congressional testimony Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann recently
refused to say it would be illegal for American POWs to be tortured through
waterboarding by our enemies. He couldn't because a policy claimed to be
legal when committed by our government would be equally legal when committed
by our enemies against our troops and POWs.
The legal perversion of Gen. Hartmann's testimony would outrage American
military families.
It dramatizes how alien this torture policy is from two centuries of
American military and legal tradition, when an American general cannot
defend the time-honored rights of American POWs, and America's enemies could
use his testimony as their defense for torture against our troops.
From the days of George Washington, every president, every Congress and
every Supreme Court has believed that torture is illegal and violates
cardinal American values.
From the days of the Continental Army until today, torture has been opposed
by virtually every commander of every branch of military service.
President Bush does not speak for any previous president, all of whom
unanimously opposed what he does today.
With all of the discredited practices of the Bush years, his playing on the
darker impulses of fear to justify what no previous president, no previous
Congress and no previous Supreme Court has ever allowed is testimony to the
damage this does to American honor and the threats this creates for American
troops.
Of course, the CIA destroyed the torture tapes that were sought as evidence
by the 9-11 Commission, courts and Congress.
They were destroyed because they were evidence of abuses that the weight of
legal opinion would conclude constitutes criminal conduct under
international and American law. Their destruction probably constitutes
obstruction of justice, intended to cover up the underlying crimes of the
torture itself.
In this warped reality-distortion field that history will condemn as the
Bush years, a general cannot even stand up for the rights, protection and
safety of American POWs because to condemn abuses against our POWs would
condemn the abuses he defends before Congress.
It is outrageous for advocates of torture to say: "We are against torture,
but" when every previous President, Congress and Supreme Court have said:
"We are against torture, period."
Torture is a cancer that metastasizes to everything it touches. Our
international credibility collapses. Our POWs are exposed to grave new
dangers. The destruction of evidence becomes inevitable. The obstruction of
justice becomes a reality and the inevitably failed cover-up is exposed.
In fact, the CIA needs to be protected from the bad judgment of our
president, as much as the bad actions of our enemies.
Torture corrupts the military chain of command, Civilians who never served
in the military order uniformed officers to commit acts that they strongly
oppose.
Torture corrupts military justice by creating a super-secret infrastructure
of detention centers that enable torture, morphing into an infrastructure of
secret courts and secret evidence that almost inevitably lead to secret
crimes that are ultimately exposed.
Torture corrupts our democracy as these wrongs are committed without public
disclosure, without congressional oversight, and without judicial review
that Justice Jackson warned at Nuremberg protects the rule of law in a
civilized world.
It is no coincidence that Attorney General Michael Mukasey pursues the
doctrine of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, trying to exclude
Congress yet again, in yet another attack on constitutional checks and
balances.
An independent counsel is clearly needed because the Justice Department and
CIA have been thoroughly integrated into the actions and justifications for
the practices under investigation.
There is no credence when government agencies so thoroughly integrated into
the torture policy investigate themselves without independent review.
This constitutes not merely the extreme perception of conflict of interest,
but the extreme reality of conflict of interest.
This conflict is even more draconian because of the unexplained reversal of
position by the attorney general himself, on this very subject, between his
first and second days of testimony during his confirmation hearings.
Military families oppose torture because they have a profound respect for
military honor, military justice and military values. Like every previous
generation of American presidents and American commanders, they know that
torture endangers those they love, who serve so bravely.
[Note: Brent asks that you crosspost your comments to The Hill, where this
blog entry also appears [1]. --JT]
_______
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
By Brent Budowsky
Created Dec 19 2007 - 2:30pm
As I write these words on the morning of Wednesday, Dec. 19, high- and
low-level officials of the Bush administration involved in torture, and the
destruction of the torture tapes, are consulting their criminal lawyers as
The New York Times reports that highest-level lawyers in the administration
had discussed the destruction of the tapes.
I predict there will soon be new stories about more torture tapes that were
destroyed and new stories about more high-level officials that were either
tainted or corrupted by this scandal, and others who opposed this travesty
who will ultimately testify about who they approached to attempt to prevent
it.
Washington and America will momentarily ask once again: What did the
president and vice president know, and when did they know it?
In an administration facing an ocean of scandal on multiple and multiplying
fronts, this scandal above all will be the Watergate of our times because it
involves extremely probable crimes of torture, extremely probable
obstructions of justice, and a steady stream of revelations that will only
escalate until the inevitable special prosecutor is named.
Congress should, and I predict ultimately will, take the decisive action of
seeking evidence, and if necessary file the great contempt case of the Bush
years that will be defined clearly and specifically as follows:
Can executive privilege be claimed to hide acts that would be violations of
criminal law?
I predict the answer of this Supreme Court, and any Supreme Court, will be
unequivocally "no."
Even a mass pardon by the president, which I have predicted and predict
again here, will not solve their problem, because he would have to name so
many recipients of pardons, and so many potential crimes that would be
pardoned, that it would be both ridiculous and logistically impossible.
What follows is the column I wrote in The Hill newspaper published on
Tuesday, Dec. 18 before this new information came to light, and before new
revelations about more destruction of more torture tapes that I predict are
coming soon:
In unprecedented congressional testimony Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann recently
refused to say it would be illegal for American POWs to be tortured through
waterboarding by our enemies. He couldn't because a policy claimed to be
legal when committed by our government would be equally legal when committed
by our enemies against our troops and POWs.
The legal perversion of Gen. Hartmann's testimony would outrage American
military families.
It dramatizes how alien this torture policy is from two centuries of
American military and legal tradition, when an American general cannot
defend the time-honored rights of American POWs, and America's enemies could
use his testimony as their defense for torture against our troops.
From the days of George Washington, every president, every Congress and
every Supreme Court has believed that torture is illegal and violates
cardinal American values.
From the days of the Continental Army until today, torture has been opposed
by virtually every commander of every branch of military service.
President Bush does not speak for any previous president, all of whom
unanimously opposed what he does today.
With all of the discredited practices of the Bush years, his playing on the
darker impulses of fear to justify what no previous president, no previous
Congress and no previous Supreme Court has ever allowed is testimony to the
damage this does to American honor and the threats this creates for American
troops.
Of course, the CIA destroyed the torture tapes that were sought as evidence
by the 9-11 Commission, courts and Congress.
They were destroyed because they were evidence of abuses that the weight of
legal opinion would conclude constitutes criminal conduct under
international and American law. Their destruction probably constitutes
obstruction of justice, intended to cover up the underlying crimes of the
torture itself.
In this warped reality-distortion field that history will condemn as the
Bush years, a general cannot even stand up for the rights, protection and
safety of American POWs because to condemn abuses against our POWs would
condemn the abuses he defends before Congress.
It is outrageous for advocates of torture to say: "We are against torture,
but" when every previous President, Congress and Supreme Court have said:
"We are against torture, period."
Torture is a cancer that metastasizes to everything it touches. Our
international credibility collapses. Our POWs are exposed to grave new
dangers. The destruction of evidence becomes inevitable. The obstruction of
justice becomes a reality and the inevitably failed cover-up is exposed.
In fact, the CIA needs to be protected from the bad judgment of our
president, as much as the bad actions of our enemies.
Torture corrupts the military chain of command, Civilians who never served
in the military order uniformed officers to commit acts that they strongly
oppose.
Torture corrupts military justice by creating a super-secret infrastructure
of detention centers that enable torture, morphing into an infrastructure of
secret courts and secret evidence that almost inevitably lead to secret
crimes that are ultimately exposed.
Torture corrupts our democracy as these wrongs are committed without public
disclosure, without congressional oversight, and without judicial review
that Justice Jackson warned at Nuremberg protects the rule of law in a
civilized world.
It is no coincidence that Attorney General Michael Mukasey pursues the
doctrine of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, trying to exclude
Congress yet again, in yet another attack on constitutional checks and
balances.
An independent counsel is clearly needed because the Justice Department and
CIA have been thoroughly integrated into the actions and justifications for
the practices under investigation.
There is no credence when government agencies so thoroughly integrated into
the torture policy investigate themselves without independent review.
This constitutes not merely the extreme perception of conflict of interest,
but the extreme reality of conflict of interest.
This conflict is even more draconian because of the unexplained reversal of
position by the attorney general himself, on this very subject, between his
first and second days of testimony during his confirmation hearings.
Military families oppose torture because they have a profound respect for
military honor, military justice and military values. Like every previous
generation of American presidents and American commanders, they know that
torture endangers those they love, who serve so bravely.
[Note: Brent asks that you crosspost your comments to The Hill, where this
blog entry also appears [1]. --JT]
_______
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
