Ducking in

Today, at the Duck of Minerva group international relations blog, I posted "Ire of Newt." Former Speaker of the House Gingrich is calling for the head of successor Nancy Pelosi because of her accusing the CIA of lying about what they told her about waterboarding in 2002. I reveal the frequent occasions when Newt himself has called out the CIA and State Department during wartime.

Yesterday, I posted "KSM: NIMBY?" which is about the hullabaloo surrounding the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay. KSM is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. NIMBY = "not in my backyard."

Wednesday, April 29, I posted "Neorealists as Critial Theorists: Film Edition." I examined the favorite IR films of Harvard academic (and blogger) Stephen Walt in light of my film class (and work on "comedy of global politics").

Tuesday, April 28, I posted "The flu: context," which discussed the broad human security implications of the flu in an ordinary year (without swine flu).


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File under "political hack"

Last Saturday, May 9, Senator Mitch McConnell gave the convocation address at the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law. It created a small stir locally -- probably because the Senator did not shy away from controversial political subjects. And his take was purely partisan.

Of course, McConnell was also dead wrong on several key facts. For example, McConnell wants to pretend that the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have been unique evil-doers:

the current Administration has announced a deadline to close the secure detention facility at Guantanamo Bay within nine months—without having any kind of plan to contain these deadly killers.

“I hope it does not take that step without a plan to make America safer as a result. And I certainly hope it does not transfer these terrorists to American soil. Such a move will likely raise more legal questions than it settles. And it will increase the risk to the American people.

“The men housed at Guantanamo are ruthless killers.

Yet, as Ken Ballen and Peter Bergen reported last October, this is factually incorrect:

...according to the Pentagon itself, only 5 percent of detainees at the prison were ever apprehended by U.S. forces to begin with. And only another 4 percent were ever alleged to have actually been fighting at all.

Why is that? Almost all of the detainees were turned over to U.S. forces by foreigners, either with an ax to grind or, more often, for a hefty bounty or reward. After U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan in late 2001, they doled out rewards of about $5,000 or more to Pakistanis and Afghans for each detainee turned over. Contrary to standard law enforcement practice, the U.S. military accepted the uncorroborated allegations of the award claimants with little independent investigation.

Now, under much pressure, the Pentagon has released more than 500 detainees over the past three years ...new statistics provided to us by the Ministry of Interior in Riyadh, zero of the 121 Guantánamo detainees received by the Saudis were deemed dangerous and ineligible for release.

It gets worse. Of those detainees returned to Saudi Arabia from Guantánamo, more than half have been released and are now free, most after spending a period of time in a halfway house designed to promote a smooth return to society. Only six former Guantánamo detainees have been rearrested in Saudi Arabia for any reason—an astonishingly low recidivism rate of less than 9 percent among those released.

Although the Saudi efforts to reintegrate these prisoners into society are certainly commendable, the only reasonable explanation for such a low recidivism rate is that the detainees were never guilty of terrorist acts in the first place.

Don't want to take the word of the Saudis? Consider this:

Information released in May by the Department of Defense further buttresses the Saudi findings of a very low recidivism rate. The department’s list of named released detainees who have subsequently engaged in militant or terrorist activities anywhere in the world shows that 12 have done so, a recidivism rate of just 2 percent. In fact, the Pentagon can cite only six instances in which an inmate released from Guantánamo actually took up arms against the United States.

...new statistics from the Saudi Ministry of Interior, corroborated by the Pentagon’s own findings, show that the overwhelming majority of individuals detained at Guantánamo not only were not terrorists, but were likely innocent of any crime.

McConnell also played fast and loose with the facts about the interrogation memos recently declassified by the Obama administration:

It was a mistake for the administration to reveal to al Qaeda terrorists the interrogation methods they can expect to face if captured. Releasing those memos has made America less safe.

As I've blogged before, scholars have been studying American torture techniques for years. They are well-known already.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel pointed out that the Bush administration had already disclosed most of the techniques:

Let me say this, one of the reasons the president was willing to let this information out was that much of the information was already out. So if they're saying that you've basically exposed something, it's been written . Go get the New York Review of books. It's there. So the notion that somehow we're exposing something -- it's already out. In fact President Bush let a lot, a lot of this information out. So the notion that somehow this is all of a sudden a game-changer, doesn't take cognizance that its already in the system and in the public domain. Therefore, it's not new.

If you don't believe Emanuel, look at this article in the October 4, 2007, NY Times. Or this piece from June 2004 in the NY Review of Books.

Numerous Bush officials were questioned about waterboarding by Congress over the past few years, especially after the November 2006 Democratic victory. John Kerry opposed Bush Attorney General Mike Mukasey over this issue in 2007.


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UN: US Tortures at Gitmo

The UN says the US should close the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This report is from the BBC:

Treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay constitutes torture in some cases and violates international law, a leaked UN draft report says....

The Los Angeles Times published the draft report in its paper on Monday and spoke to one of the authors, the UN special raporteur on torture, Manfred Novak.

"We very, very carefully considered all of the arguments posed by the US government. There are no conclusions that are easily drawn. But we concluded that the situation in several areas violates international law and conventions on human rights and torture," Mr Nowak told the LA Times.

Officially, the report won't be out until the end of the week. The LA Times had this excerpt:

"In their view, the legal regime applied to these detainees seriously undermines the rule of law and a number of fundamental universally recognized human rights, which are the essence of democratic societies," the report said.

The US government is criticizing the document because the authors didn't actually go to Cuba. Of course, they've wanted to visit the prison since 2002:

The five experts had sought invitations from the United States to visit Guantanamo Bay since 2002 and three were offered a visit last year. But they refused in November when they were told they would not be allowed to interview detainees.

The United States believes that the International Committee of the Red Cross is the body that should handle that duty. However, ICRC reports are generally confidential, while the U.N. experts usually make their findings public.

"Fact-finding on the spot has to include interviews with detainees," said Manfred Nowak, the U.N. special investigator on torture and one of the experts. "What's the sense of going to a detention facility and doing fact-finding when you can't speak to the detainees? It's just nonsense."

Remember, kids, the US is spreading liberty and democracy...


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Filed as: Guantanamo and torture

The Consequences of Truth: Durbin edition

Illinois Senator Richard Durbin came under some heat this past week for going on the Senator floor and calling attention to some of the abuses at the Guantanamo Bay prison. The Chicago Tribune reported his words today:

Durbin read aloud from an FBI agent's detailed e-mail complaining about the "torture techniques" visited upon one Al Qaeda prisoner.

That e-mail described how the agent entered interview rooms to find "a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves and had been left there for 18 to 24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold."

The Tribune did not report the rest of the Senator's paragraph (read the entire speech if you'd like), also taken from the FBI agent's email:

On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

Durbin then delivered a powerful punchline, not unlike the one recently delivered by Amnesty International:

"If I read this to you, and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings," Durbin said.

For these words, Durbin has been crucified by the right.

Fellow Senator John Warner of Virginia said that he had demonstrated "a grievous error in judgment." White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan called the speech "reprehensible." Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh called for his resignation!

Vice President Cheney also joined in this attempt to shoot the messenger:

I thought Durbin was totally out of line. I watched some of his comments on the floor of the United States Senate. For him to make those comparisons was one of the more egregious things I'd ever heard uttered on the floor of the United States Senate....it was so far over the top that I'm just appalled that anybody who serves in the United States Senate would even think those thoughts.

Now, apparently, Durbin has backed off a bit:

"More than 1700 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq and our country’s standing in the world community has been badly damaged by the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. My statement in the Senate was critical of the policies of this Administration which add to the risk our soldiers face."

"I will continue to speak out when I disagree with this Administration."

"I have learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood. I sincerely regret if what I said caused anyone to misunderstand my true feelings: our soldiers around the world and their families at home deserve our respect, admiration and total support."

I can understand that Durbin may fear that his words will be taken out of context and used against him, just as John Kerry's famous testimony during the Vietnam War was during the 2004 campaign season.

However, in his speech, Durbin pointed out that the Supreme Court eventually stood up to Abraham Lincoln when he suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War and that the US now very much regrets the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

America needs more people of conviction like Senator Richard Durbin. Contact his office and tell him that you support his attempt to speak truth to power. It appears he could use the boost.

Solzhenitsyn and Orwell: Still Relevant

Since 1991, I've been the faculty sponsor for the University of Louisville campus chapter of Amnesty International. Some years the students are very active, other years there really isn't much of a chapter.

In any case, I have a long-time interest in AI and have a lot of confidence in their human rights work. Needless to say, Amnesty has been unhappy with some Bush administration policies and practices against suspects in the "war on terror." From a CNN report:

"The U.S. is maintaining an archipelago of prisons around the world, many of them secret prisons, into which people are being literally disappeared, held in indefinite, incommunicado detention without access to lawyers or a judicial system or to their families," [William] Schulz [Executive director of the Washington branch] said.

"And in some cases, at least, we know they are being mistreated, abused, tortured and even killed."

...Amnesty International's report, released May 25, cited "growing evidence of U.S. war crimes" and labeled the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay as "the gulag of our times."

Because of my faith in Amnesty, I was more than a little dismayed by President Bush's remarks about the AI report when questioned about them during a Press Conference, May 31:

THE PRESIDENT: Terry.

Q Thank you, sir. Mr. President, recently, Amnesty International said you have established "a new gulag" of prisons around the world, beyond the reach of the law and decency. I'd like your reaction to that, and also your assessment of how it came to this, that that is a view not just held by extremists and anti-Americans, but by groups that have allied themselves with the United States government in the past -- and what the strategic impact is that in many places of the world, the United States these days, under your leadership, is no longer seen as the good guy.

THE PRESIDENT: I'm aware of the Amnesty International report, and it's absurd. It's an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that is -- promotes freedom around the world. When there's accusations made about certain actions by our people, they're fully investigated in a transparent way. It's just an absurd allegation.

In terms of the detainees, we've had thousands of people detained. We've investigated every single complaint against the detainees. It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of -- and the allegations -- by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means not tell the truth. And so it was an absurd report. It just is.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld called the "gulag" charge "reprehensible." Vice President Dick Cheney said he was offended.

Did any of these men address the specific claims? No, of course not.

Yesterday, I was reminded by Susan Nossel of Democracy Arsenal that the White House favorably and frequently cited Amnesty International reports during the buildup to the Iraq war. She linked to this appropriately titled Think Progress post: "The Bush Administration Was For Amnesty International Before It Was Against It." Blogger Faiz references several anti-Iraq statements by Rumsfeld that cited AI reports.

There's plenty more: Amnesty is referenced at least six times in Decade of Deception and Defiance, which the White House Press Office called a "background paper for President George W. Bush's September 12th [2002] speech to the United Nations General Assembly."

Amnesty International reported that, in October 2000, the Iraqi Government executed dozens of women accused of prostitution.

According to Amnesty International, the victims' heads were displayed in front of their homes for several days.

Amnesty International reported that Iraq has the world's worst record for numbers of persons who have disappeared or remain unaccounted for.

In August 2001, Amnesty International reported that Saddam Hussein has the world's worst record for numbers of persons who have disappeared and remain unaccounted for.

Obviously, there was some redundancy.

Given what has been revealed about Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, there's a certain irony in this one:

In August 2001 Amnesty International released a report entitled Iraq -- Systematic Torture of Political Prisoners, which detailed the systematic and routine use of torture against suspected political opponents and, occasionally, other prisoners. Amnesty International also reports "Detainees have also been threatened with bringing in a female relative, especially the wife or the mother, and raping her in front of the detainee. Some of these threats have been carried out."

I'm thinking about assigning 1984 for my US Foreign Policy class this fall.

Rule of Law

Earlier this summer, NYT columnist Anthony Lewis wrote a powerful piece for Mother Jones (warning, pdf file) discussing the adverse consequences of the war on terror for human rights.

To help make his most important point, Lewis referenced Aharon Barak, president of the Israeli Supreme Court:

"Terrorism does not justify the neglect of accepted legal norms," Justice Barak wrote in 2002. "This is how we distinguish ourselves from the terrorists themselves. They act against the law, by violating and trampling it, while in its war against terrorism, a democratic state acts within the framework of the law and according to the law. It is, therefore, not merely a war of the state against its enemies; it is also a war of the Law against its enemies."

Powerful stuff.

Lewis argues that the Bush administration has ignored the rule of law by holding captives against their will and without due process at Guantanamo Bay and by holding American citizens Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi for alleged terrorist actions. Lewis also discusses the arrest of more than 1000 Muslims in the US after 9/11. The article includes a bit about the Patriot Act, but these dubious detentions are far more serious since the President's lawyers basically argue against allowing detainees to have access to lawyers or to due process. Very few have been charged with any crimes and dozens of people at Gitmo have been freed. Hundreds of detained Muslims have also been freed, though some were held against their will for weeks and even months.

The section about some British citizens held at Gitmo is enough to make your skin crawl.

I tried to find the original for the Barak quote. It appears to have originated in a lecture the Judge gave in Cambridge (UK) , July 18, 2003 (warning, also a pdf file).

Barak also gave a great keynote address on this theme at Brandeis University on May 18, 2003. Allow me to quote this lengthy section:

There is no democracy without recognition of basic values and principles such as morality and justice. Above all, democracy cannot exist without the protection of individual human rights - rights so essential that they must be insulated from the power of the majority.

The rule of law and democracy must prevail in times of peace. They must also prevail in times of war and terror. The Roman saying that in battle the laws are silent - or the well-known saying that when the cannons speak, the Muses are silent - is wrong. Every battle a country wages - against terrorism or any other enemy - is done according to rules and laws. There is always law according to which the state must act. There are no black holes. And the law needs Muses, ever more urgently than when the cannons speak. We need laws most in times of war. And we need human rights most in times of war and in the fight against terror. Yes, when a democracy fights terror, not all means are acceptable to it, and not all methods employed by its enemies are open to it. Sometimes, a democracy must fight with one hand tied behind its back. Nonetheless, it has the upper hand. Preserving the rule of law and recognition of individual liberties constitute an important component of its understanding of security. At the end of the day, to strengthen its spirit and to allow it to overcome its difficulties. So in the United States after September 11th, and so in my country, Israel, where we are suffering from terrorism for a long time.

I'm heartened to think that the American Supreme Court shares these ideals, since the Bush administration last month lost its attempt to deny Hamdi and the Gitmo detainees access to judicial processes. The Court did not rule on the Padilla case on technical grounds -- but sent it back to the lower court, presumably with a new copy of the latest rulings.

The president's constitutional powers, even when supported by Congress in wartime, do not include the authority to close the doors to an independent review of the legality of locking people up, the justices said.

"We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in Hamdi et al v. Rumsfeld.

I should note that the "rule of law" was an important reason to oppose the US invasion of Iraq. Without UN sanction, it was an illegal war. How can the US foster democracy around the world if its leaders attempt to subvert it domestically and if it is not accountable internationally?

Is the US Violating the Geneva Conventions?

While many analysts ask this question in respect of the prisoners at Guantanamo, I'm following Billmon's lead and asking this in terms of US practices in Iraq.

The AP reported Wednesday that the US had arrested the family of one of Saddam's Deputies. Apparently, the US has previously held the families of Iraqi scientists as well.

In a nutshell, these arrested people are hostages. As the AP story indicates:

The detention of the relatives of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a lifelong Saddam associate who is No. 6 on the list of most-wanted Iraqis, was an apparent attempt to pressure his surrender or gather intelligence that might lead to him.

[Lt. Colonel] MacDonald gave no details on why the wife and daughter were seized, but American forces have frequently arrested relatives of fugitives to interrogate them on their family member's whereabouts and as a way of putting pressure on the wanted men to surrender.

The media director of the Amnesty International USA, Alistair Hodgett, questioned the tactic, saying if the women were arrested to pressure al-Douri to turn himself in, they were being used as "bargaining chips."

"At a minimum, the U.S. should clarify on what legal basis (they) ... have been detained. If the purpose of their arrest is to exert pressure on Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri and force his surrender, then it is cause for grave concern," Hodgett said in a statement

Billmon points out that this is a pretty blatant violation of the Geneva Convention:

Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

To this end, the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons...

Taking of hostages

In Billmon's comments, someone else has quoted the part of the Geneva conventions that makes the same activity illegal for occupying powers, which is the official international status of the US in Iraq.

My readers might also recall the recent bulldozing of family residences in Iraq, which is also apparently illegal -- and the State Department has criticized it when Israel has done it.

It's awfully difficult for the US to argue in behalf of the rule of law and against the targeting of civilians by terrorists if its activity isn't a hell of a lot different.