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Articles : "War on Terror"Rogue Soldiers or Rogue President?
The news that yet another Army private, Lynndie England, 22, of Fort Ashby, West Virginia, has been convicted and sentenced for posing for the infamous photos of torture at Abu Ghraib, while her superiors duck responsibility, is a sad commentary on the extent to which the Bush administration has corrupted the U.S. Army.
The reminder of the photos of those inexcusable activities was sickening enough, and England deserves to be punished. But I am of the old-Army school where officers took responsibility for the actions of those under their command. For anyone who cares to look, there is abundant documentary evidence that the Army brass and its civilian leadership are responsible for the torture. They continue to dance away from taking responsibility.
They choose, instead, to stone the woman, like the hypocrites of Bible fame, contending that the photos inflamed the insurgency in Iraq. It is the torture, not the photos, that inflames the insurgency. And responsibility for the torture reaches directly up the chain of command to the commander-in-chief himself. Perhaps when even more repulsive photos and videos of torture at Abu Ghraib are released, as a federal judge has now ordered, the American people finally will be jarred awake.
So far, the silent acquiescence with which Americans – including our institutional churches – have greeted President George W. Bush’s open assertion of a right to torture some prisoners evokes memories of the unconscionable behavior of “obedient Germans” of the 1930s and early 1940s. Thankfully, despite the hate whipped up by administration propagandists against people branded “terrorists,” polling conducted last year showed that most Americans reject torturing prisoners. Almost two-thirds held that torture is never acceptable.
Yet few speak out – perhaps because President Bush says he too, is against torture, and our domesticated media have successfully hidden from most of us the fact that the president has added a highly significant qualification. On February 7, 2002, the president issued an order instructing our armed forces “to treat detainees humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva” (emphasis added). In the preceding paragraph, the president determined that Taliban and al-Qaeda detainees “do not qualify as prisoners of war.” Never mind that there is no provision in the Geneva Conventions for such a unilateral determination.
Speedy Gonzales
In taking this position, Bush had to overrule then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, the only one of his senior advisers with experience in combat. On January 26, 2002, Powell sent to then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales formal comments on the latter’s MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT: “DECISION RE APPLICATION OF THE GENEVA CONVENTION ON PRISONERS OF WAR TO THE CONFLICT WITH AL QAEDA AND THE TALIBAN.”
This is the Mafia-like memorandum in which Gonzales not only branded some Geneva provisions “quaint” and “obsolete,” but also reassured the president that he could probably escape domestic criminal prosecution for violating the US War Crimes Act of 1996 (18 USC 2441), as well. Here is what Gonzales told the president on this key point:
...it is difficult to predict the motives of prosecutors and independent counsels who may in the future decide to pursue unwarranted charges based on Section 2441. Your determination would create a reasonable basis in law that Section 2441 does not apply, which would provide a solid defense to any future prosecution.
Meanwhile, back at the State Department, Powell apparently thought the memorandum was still in draft. But Gonzales, who knew what the president wanted, did not wait for Powell’s formal comments. Rather, on January 25, Gonzales sent his final draft to the president, thereby shielding him from dissonance like Powell’s written observation that exempting detainees from Geneva protections “will reverse over a century of U.S. policy and practice in supporting the Geneva conventions and undermine the protections of the law of war for our troops.”
Gonzales was already aware of Powell’s opposition, and in his own memo the former White House counsel and now attorney general was dismissive of Powell’s request that the president reconsider the argument that al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees are not prisoners of war under Geneva. In a short paragraph tacked onto the bottom of a list of “negatives,” Gonzales took brief note of Powell’s objections. Gonzales’s paragraph speaks volumes in the light of subsequent abuses in Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo:
A determination that the GPW [Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War] does not apply to al-Qaeda and the Taliban could undermine U.S. military culture which emphasizes maintaining the highest standards of conduct in combat, and could introduce an element of uncertainty in the status of adversaries.
Last week, over a dozen high ranking military officers sent a letter to President Bush, pointing out that “It is now apparent that the abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and elsewhere took place in part because our men and women in uniform were given ambiguous instructions, which in some cases authorized treatment that went beyond what was allowed by the Army Field Manual.”
A pity that Colin Powell limited himself to writing memos to the president’s lawyer.
The photos from Abu Ghraib, and the more recent Human Rights Watch report describing “routine” torture by the once highly professional 82nd Airborne Division, offer graphic evidence that Powell’s misgivings were well-founded. The report relies heavily on the testimony of a West Point graduate, an Army Captain who has had the courage to speak out after 17 months of trying in vain to go through Army channels.
Human Rights Watch Director Tom Malinowski has noted, “The administration demanded that soldiers extract information from detainees without telling them what was allowed and what was forbidden. Yet when the abuses inevitably followed, the leadership blamed the soldiers in the field instead of taking responsibility.” A Pentagon spokesman has dismissed the report as “another predictable report by an organization trying to advance an agenda through the use of distortion and errors of fact.” Judge for yourselves; the report can be found here. It’s grim but required reading.
Pictures Worth a Thousand Words
After seeing the photos from Abu Ghraib last year, Senate Armed Forces Committee Chairman John Warner of Virginia took a strong rhetorical stand against torture. But then he quickly succumbed to White House pressure to postpone Senate hearings on the subject until after the November 2004 election.
In July, Warner joined two other Republican Senators, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, in attempts to introduce amendments against torture to the defense authorization bill. The amendments would require that US forces revert to the standards set forth in Army Field Manual (FM 34-52) for interrogating detainees held by the Defense Department. The manual prohibits the use of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Another amendment that has been discussed would require that all foreign nationals “be registered with the International Committee of the Red Cross.” This would prohibit sequestering unregistered “ghost detainees” at prisons like Abu Ghraib and secret CIA interrogation centers.
Inured as I thought I had become to the gall of top Bush administration officials, I found the White House reaction shocking. On the evening of July 21, Vice President Dick Cheney went to Capitol Hill to dissuade the three Senators from proceeding with the amendments. But the Senators were not cowed – not then, at least. Four days later on the floor of the Senate, John McCain – who knows something of torture – made a poignant appeal to his colleagues to hold our country to humane standards in treating captives, “no matter how evil or terrible” they may be. “This is not about who they are. This is about who we are,” said McCain.
The following day Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist pulled the Pentagon spending bill off the floor, sparing Bush the political risk of vetoing the much needed defense authorization bill simply because it included amendments requiring the protections for detainees – protections already required not only by international law but also by U.S. criminal statute.
Yesterday, the White House again warned lawmakers not to add any amendments on the treatment of detainees. It will be interesting to see if, in the end, the Senators cave in to White House pressure. For if they do, they will be providing yet another congressional nihil obstat for the general approach so succinctly voiced by the president to then-terrorism czar Richard Clarke and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld in the White House on the evening of 9/11. According to Clarke, the president yelled, “I don’t care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass.”
Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. A former Army officer and CIA analyst, he is now a member of the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
Posted by anthony
Anthony Lappé is GNN's Executive Editor. He's written for The New York Times, Details, New York, Paper, The Fader and Vice, among many others. He has worked as a producer for MTV and Fuse. He is the co-author of GNN's True Lies and the producer of their Iraq doc,...
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This is funny, oh yes the President sex fiddled with the prisoners, not Lyndie England as was reported, just like the cunt sheehan who says that the Industrial Military Complex killed Martin Luther King and her son was like Martin Luther King.
LOL, the far left is so hularious..
The President didnt do it, I didnt get that from this article.
But he took actions to make sure that His army (he is commander in chief, and a commander is at least partially responsible for the conduct of those under him), was allowed to torture.
I think the soldiers are responsible for their conduct (Nurenberg), but the commanders werent just not-clear-enough, they went out of their way to make sure that torture was acceptable. I think its entirely logical for the soldiers to assume that means they should be using torture.
If my boss at work came up to me and said: “I want you to know you can use illegally pirated software” while I was in a situation where it would come up, say I was the person responsible for acquiring new software, I would assume he had just told me to use illegally pirated software.
So if Bush (or whatever commanders) lets everyone know that the geneva convention doesnt apply here, that torturing prisoners is ok, what other conclusion could those guarding them come to?
You are stretching real far to justify your hope, which is the hope for a connection between the prisoner abuse case in Iraq and the President. Don’t complicate things with these pointless mental gymnastics, the President did not abuse the prisoners, period, no more than Blair abused the Iraqis that a handful of UK soldiers were implicated in last year, or Brian Mulroney tortured Somalian teenagers.
War is a great endeavor and it provides one the greatest opportunities for improvement to the human condition. It provides opportunities for free nations to stomp out dictatorships and unfortunatly sometimes, some people abuse power and our leaders take reasonable steps to prevent it.
I do agree in a lot of cases it is rogue soldiers, and that if a soldier goes against what his commanders have said, and abuses his power, then it is entirely on the soldier, providing that the commanders remedy the situation as soon as they are made aware of it.
But in this case, the real point is that Bush has gone out of his way to allow torture. Its not really gymnastics to play connect the dots.
Im trying to keep this as simple as it is: the commander made sure his troops were allowed to torture, then acted surprised when they did.
I think you and I have a very different view of what war is. I see it as wrong. It is always wrong. Sometimes it is unavoidable, and it can be worthwhile to stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves.
But I think it should always be seen as wrong.
The most noble war is still wrong.
But using legal loopholes which may or may not exist to remove a persons protection from torture is not a necessary evil. It is not even a noble evil. And it sends a very clear message.
the President did not abuse the prisoners, period
Nobody is saying that he did. What is abundantly clear is that he condoned and permitted it. The Nuremburg trials established that the commanders are equally as liable for crimes as their subordinates.
which is the hope for a connection between the prisoner abuse case in Iraq and the President.
Who sent the troops to Iraq again, stupid?
We’re focussing on the symptoms and not the causes here. Thomas Paine:
When despotism has established itself for ages in a country, as in France, it is not in the person of the king only that it resides. It has the appearance of being so in show, and in nominal authority; but it is not so in practice and in fact. It has its standard everywhere. Every office and department has its despotism, founded upon custom and usage. Every place has its Bastille, and every Bastille its despot. The original hereditary despotism resident in the person of the king, divides and sub-divides itself into a thousand shapes and forms, till at last the whole of it is acted by deputation. This was the case in France; and against this species of despotism, proceeding on through an endless labyrinth of office till the source of it is scarcely perceptible, there is no mode of redress. It strengthens itself by assuming the appearance of duty, and tyrannises under the pretence of obeying.
When a man reflects on the condition which France was in from the nature of her government, he will see other causes for revolt than those which immediately connect themselves with the person or character of Louis XVI. There were, if I may so express it, a thousand despotisms to be reformed in France, which had grown up under the hereditary despotism of the monarchy, and became so rooted as to be in a great measure independent of it. Between the Monarchy, the Parliament, and the Church there was a rivalship of despotism; besides the feudal despotism operating locally, and the ministerial despotism operating everywhere. But Mr. Burke, by considering the king as the only possible object of a revolt, speaks as if France was a village, in which everything that passed must be known to its commanding officer, and no oppression could be acted but what he could immediately control. Mr. Burke might have been in the Bastille his whole life, as well under Louis XVI. as Louis XIV., and neither the one nor the other have known that such a man as Burke existed. The despotic principles of the government were the same in both reigns, though the dispositions of the men were as remote as tyranny and benevolence.
Is the analogy clear? It’s not Private England, it’s not President Bush, it’s not Secretary Rumsfeld, it’s not Attorney General Gonzales – it is the latest incarnation of a messianic contempt for the enemy’s humanity that goes straight back to the war and the concentration camps waged and constructed between St. Louis and San Francisco between 1803 and 1893. It submerged itself in the wars against Germany (fellow white people) but never really went away, as even the most cursory examination of history and politics will reveal. The names I have dropped are guilty to the extent that they specifically revelled in it instead of having learned from history – but there’s a deeper problem than merely replacing the bodies in the drivers’ seats.
Nal “Im trying to keep this as simple as it is: the commander made sure his troops were allowed to torture, then acted surprised when they did.”
How did the President go out of his way to make sure that his troops were allowed to torture?
Juice “Who sent the troops to Iraq again, stupid?”
Ok, it is now getting clearer. The President sent the troops to Iraq. Had it been a just war, than there would have been no implied encouragement of torture, but because it was unjust, he endorses torture.
Real simple, this leftwing logic, when you get used to it.
Snark; “Nobody is saying that he did. What is abundantly clear is that he condoned and permitted it. “
How?
“The Nuremburg trials established that the commanders are equally as liable for crimes as their subordinates.”
No it didn’t. The Nurnburg trials dealt with the leaders of Naziism and their direct involvement.
Which Nazi was convicted solely on evidence that his subordinates commited crimes.
What I think you are confusing is the “I was just following orders” defense which high ranking officers used to defend themselves against actions they commited under orders from Hitler himself, or high command.
IF2 asked:
How did the President go out of his way to make sure that his troops were allowed to torture?
Well, from the above article, Id say that the Feb 27, 2002 order in which Bush made perfectly clear that the prisoners were not prisoners of war and therefore not under the protection of the geneva convention is a pretty good sign.
He didnt have to say “Torture them good”, simply saying “these guys aren’t covered by Geneva… now extract information from them” strikes me as a rather irresponsible thing to do, and a rather clear message
Also, as mentioned in the article above, the administrations opposition to the Warner/McCain/Graham amendment requiring army personnel to do things by the book, sends another clear message.
If it was just me, or even just the normal anti-Bush voices, I could see your point that this is just the left lashing against the right. It often is in the US media.
But when Powell is saying it sends the wrong message, I take that pretty seriously. Why dont you?
It seems logical to assume that England was singled out to be the scapegoat from the moment she was asked to pose with detainees. Somehow, I almost feel sorry for her. Those who introduced these practices never faced charges and she was left out in the cold.
While I do not agree with non-compliance with Geneva convention, it is a fact that information has to be obtained from alledged terrorist. The means should hold up to standards that do not deny the commitment and honor of service.