They in turn relied upon the Justice Department’s findings that the actions in question were legal.
Yes, this is good. It removes any uncertainty or battle of strained interpretations. The law needs to be clear before we can punish someone for violating it. Ambiguity in criminal law is always resolved in favor of the accused.
I am.
In my view, no. Can’t say I’ve studied this issue closely, but I’d say no.
If these actions are or might be crimes, where exactly would you fix criminal responsibility for them? I hope you’ll agree it should be fixed on someone.
Not if they “might be” crimes, for the same reason I articulated above: the criminal law must unambiguously inform someone of the behavior which is prohibited. To decide after the fact, or to even have a close question, on whether some act is criminal run in the face of our understanding of due process and our distaste of ex post facto laws.
But, to let everyone involved get away with a crime just because they had the protective cover of tame ideologues in the DOJ to pronounce it no crime runs in the face of government accountability and the rule of law. Is that not even worse?
I think the fact that immunity was granted speaks volumes about the illegality of the actions. The Administration and their cronies in Congress obviously took it as a serious concern, or else they wouldn’t have put in the immunity. After all, why grant immunity if nothing illegal happened?
We’ve actually prosecuted people (foreigners) for waterboarding our POWs. cite
I guess it’s bad when people do it to us, but when we do it to other people for the sake of “national security” that must make it ok!
So torturing prisoners is one of those grey areas?
The torturers who tortured prisoners at Gitmo can’t claim “I didn’t know torture was illegal!”. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. A Bush administration lawyer telling you that torture is legal doesn’t make it legal. And what should happen to the lawyers who told the torturers that torture was legal? What, in your opinion should happen to them?
Even if they can’t be charged with crimes, shouldn’t such legal malpractice result in disbarment and permanent social and political ostracism?
Did you have a cite where interrogators beat prisoners using hands, fists, club; kicking; burning using cigarettes? Failing that, did you have a cite where some Japanese was convicted of torture for using waterboarding alone? Thanks in advance.
Are you claiming that waterboarding is only an offense when done in conjunction with other forms of torture? IANAL, but I don’t think it works that way. Unless you want to claim that burning with cigarettes is also not an offense by itself, but only in tandem with a beating.
I don’t know if you’re being intentionally misleading here, but the debate isn’t whether torture was legal, it’s about what defines torture. However it came about, someone asked the justice department if water boarding was torture, and they said it was not torture.
If you’re tasked with zapping people with a mild electric charge (something that really isn’t torture as it’s a routine part of expirements) and you ask the guy in the white lab coat if zapping people with that amount of electricity is torture and he says no, what are you going to do? And if you later find out that the American people do generally consider that level of zapping to be torture, are you going to turn yourself in?
Well, gee Shodan.
Thing is, all this torture was done, you know, secretly. Nice and convenient that you can torture people to death but get away with it because keeping the torture secret is a matter of national security.
Torture was widespread and common at Gitmo. You know it. I know it. The American people know it.
Did you ever read “The Gulag Archipelago”? The Soviets perfected torture techniques under Stalin. And we seem to have copied Soviet methods at Gitmo. Beatings, burnings and so on are amatuer methods. Stress positions, hypothermia, sleep deprivation, starvation and isolation are what professional torturers use. And people like you can rest easy because beating and burning someone is torture, yet being kept awake for days with your arms shackled behind your back in 50 degree air isn’t torture. The guards didn’t burn the prisoner with cigarettes, right?
Is it a good thing for the people who tortured detainees at Gitmo to just go on with their careers as if nothing happened? Is it a good idea for the people who authorized torture of detainees to just go on with their careers as if nothing happened? Sweep it all under the rug as a matter of national security?
Funny thing, it now looks like most of the detainees at Gitmo will never stand trial, BECAUSE they’ve been tortured. These people almost certainly include at least SOME terrorists, but most of those terrorists are going to walk free because the Bush administration decided that torture was cool.
You think waterboarding was the only torture technique used at Gitmo?
Waterboarding is torture. Sleep deprivation is torture. Hypothermia is torture. Starvation is torture. Dehydration is torture.
Just because you got a memo from your boss telling you waterboarding isn’t torture that doesn’t make it true. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, we don’t hand people a get out of jail free card just because their lawyer told them bank robbery was legal.
So, you support not only letting the people who tortured get away with it, but also those who told them they could go ahead and torture too?
There was no “ambiguity” until this administration created it. And you’re fine not only not punishing those who tortured (assuming again), but also those who told them they could torture? That’s just… well NOT GOOD.
Presumably, if it were part of an experiment, the people involved would be volunteers who could quit anytime they wanted. I hope you see that there’s a difference between that, and giving electric shocks (of whatever severity) to somebody you’re holding as prisoner?
And yet these are all techniques regularly in use by police departments around the country. I was also regularly deprived sleep at basic training and I didn’t feel tortured.
Clearly there’s some level of sleep, food, and water deprivation that crosses the line, and if you have America’s head lawyers telling you where that line is, what are you gonna do?
Well I’m not blind to the differences. Perhaps I should have used the Stanford Prison Experiment as an example. The guards in that expeirment later felt that they had tortured people, but at the time, with the consent of authority, they didn’t think anything of it. The prisoners were also free to leave at any time, but they felt they couldn’t. I think if you’re close to the line, and your bosses are telling you that you’re not crossing it, there’s some justification to the “just following orders” defense.
FTR, I’m not saying torture hasn’t happened in many places during the war on terror, I’m just sympathetic to the ones doing the torturing. I think this needs to come down on somebody higher up. I’m just not sure where, and I think it’s going to be hard to pin anything down on anyone.
It is wonderful to have all these technicalities to cover up the fact that the US government committed such barbarities. No matter, we say, they were legal.
Do you really think the world cares about such technicalities? I am sure when The Chinese torture, or when the Chilean Junta or the Argentinians or the Nazis tortured it was also “legal” in their jurisdictions. But that did not make it acceptable.
The point is not whether it’s “legal”. The point is that it is completely unacceptable in a civilized country. And if it is legal then what does that say about the country?
Slavery, apartheid, etc were also legal at one time. That did not make them any less odious.
The USA should be ashamed and they should disavow these acts and punish those responsible. Anything less just says that America stands for torture.
Do you really use the term “war on terror” without irony?
Call me a hardass, but I’m not sympathetic to torturers. If a CIA guy is waterboarding somebody, he’s probably aware that he’s doing something that has been prosecuted (by the United States) as a war crime when done by other countries.
Since waterboarding isn’t torture, by their own claims, can we use water boarding on the people who authorized it? Right?
Cite?
So we have Pat Leahy & a Clinton admin lawyer no one’s heard of (I smell selection bias) saying it won’t happen. Whatever. That tells us jack-all. Independent DoJ, you know.
However…
If Obama & his new DoJ really decide to let torture by the previous administration slide, that’s Bad.
We are not following a Pinochet nor a Franco. We did not have to offer amnesty just to get elections. We do not need amnesty to guarantee peace. We have lawfully & peacefully replaced an administration. We can uphold the rule of law peacefully.
If we don’t, then we sacrifice law for appeasement, when there is no need. This is not appeasement for the sake of peace or pragmatism; this is appeasement for the sake of appeasement itself.
To be frank, I expect this from Obama. He is an appeaser by nature. But I hope for better.