Shielding Torturers Should Be A Litmus Test

By Steve Hynd

Dave has already posted about the story, but I want to say a little more. This should really be a litmus-test issue:

A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that former prisoners of the C.I.A. could not sue over their alleged torture in overseas prisons because such a lawsuit might expose secret government information.

...While the alleged abuses occurred during the Bush administration, the ruling added a chapter to the Obama administration�s aggressive national security policies.

Its counterterrorism programs have in some ways departed from the expectations of change fostered by President Obama�s campaign rhetoric, which was often sharply critical of former President George W. Bush�s approach.

Among other policies, the Obama national security team has also authorized the C.I.A. to try to kill a United States citizen suspected of terrorism ties, blocked efforts by detainees in Afghanistan to bring habeas corpus lawsuits challenging the basis for their imprisonment without trial, and continued the C.I.A.�s so-called extraordinary rendition program of prisoner transfers � though the administration has forbidden torture and says it seeks assurances from other countries that detainees will not be mistreated.

Binyam Mohammed, one of the plaintiffs, had his penis sliced up after his illegal rendition! The Obama administration doesn't even dispute many of the central facts of the case, including Mohammed's torture. But they're citing state secrets to shield everyone involved anyway.

Andrew Sullivan cites both Marc Ambinder and Glenn Greenwald as he writes, with passion, a post that deserves lengthy excerpting:

Obama's insistence on protecting every Bush era war criminal and every Bush era war crime from any redress or even scrutiny is a sign both of how cold-blooded he can be, but more, I think, of how powerful the security state now is, how it can protect itself, how it exists independently of any real accountability to anyone, how even the metrics of judging it are beyond the citizen's reach or understanding.

I tried valiantly not to believe this of Holder and Obama for months; I tried to see their legitimate concerns about exposing a war machine when it is still at war; I understand the need for some extraordinary renditions; and the necessity for executive power in emergencies to act swiftly, as the Founders intended. Yes war requires some secrecy. But Obama has gone much further than this now. The cloak of secrecy he is invoking is not protecting national security but protecting war crimes. And this is now inescapably his cloak. He is therefore a clear and knowing accessory to war crimes, and should at some point face prosecution as well, if the Geneva Conventions mean anything any more. This won't happen in my lifetime, barring a miracle. Because Obama was a test case. If an outsider like him, if a constitutional scholar like him, at a pivotal moment for accountability like the last two years, cannot hold American torturers to account, there is simply no accountability for American torture. When the CIA actually rehires as a contractor someone who held a power-drill against the skull of a prisoner, you know that change from within this system is impossible. The system is too powerful. It protects itself. It makes a mockery of the rule of law. It doesn't only allow torture; it rewards it.

The case yesterday is particularly egregious because it forbade a day in court for torture victims even if only non-classified evidence was used. Think of that for a minute. It shreds any argument that national security is in any way at stake here.

...We had a chance to draw a line. We had a chance to do the right thing. But Obama has vigorously denied us the chance even for minimal accountability for war crimes that smell to heaven.

Sullivan goes on to predict that if the GOP returns to the White House, torture will return too - because now Republicans in love with "enhanced interrogation" know there'll be no comeback - and that if Americans wish to end this bi-partisan travesty of the Rule of law then they will have to do it by ditching both the main parties, since both will shield the wrongdoers.

But I want to throw another thought out there.

Why the hell should we trust an administration that will shield torturers to get anything involving the Rule of Law or humanity towards their fellow man right?

That includes but isn't limited to: "population-centric" COIN in Afghanistan, aid without strings for flood victims in Pakistan, warrantless searches and wiretappings domestically, healthcare reform, aid for the unemployed, stopping the abuse of tax cuts so that rich people can pad their offshore accounts.

There's a report today that says the US military knew early on about a Stryker Brigade "murder team" which is alleged to have killed at least three Afghans, keeping body parts as trophies.

The father of a U.S. soldier serving in Afghanistan says he tried nearly a half dozen times to pass an urgent message from his son to the Army: Troops in his unit had murdered an Afghan civilian, planned more killings and threatened him to keep quiet about it.

By the time officials arrested suspects months later, two more Afghans were dead.

And much to Christopher Winfield's horror, his son Adam was among the five Fort Lewis-based soldiers charged in the killings.

It would appear that, for Obama's America, the only higher ground to stand upon is to say that they 12 soldiers charged were freelancers rather than doing their crimes under official imprematur.