Month: October 2005

“The Senate has passed a bill setting standards for treatment of detainees regardless of whether they’re covered by the Geneva Convention or not. The White House is resisting.
This resistance seems to me to be a mistake. First — as Lamar Alexander noted on the Senate floor, in a passage I heard on NPR earlier this morning — it is very much the Congress’s responsibility to make decisions like this; the President might do so in the first instance, but we’ve been at war for more than four years and Congress is actually doing its job late, not jumping in to interfere. If the White House thinks that the Senate’s approach is substantively wrong, it should say so, but presenting it as simply an interference with the President’s Commander-in-Chief powers is wrong. Congress is entitled, and in fact obligated, to set standards of this sort. It’s probably also better politically for the White House, since once the legislation is in place complaints about what happened before look a bit ex post facto.” – Glenn Reynolds, today, after months of silence on the subject. It seems to me that Glenn’s long-held (and I don’t doubt sincere) position has been disproven – that we shouldn’t keep highlighting abuses and blaming the Bush administration for them because that was “screeching partisanship” and would backfire, causing more public support for torture. So John McCain, Anne Applebaum, Nat Hentoff or yours truly are “screeching partisans”? Ahem. We just didn’t believe that loyalty to the president trumped profound moral disgrace. And we believed that the American public, if told repeatedly what was going on, would support us in the end. Now that 90 senators have joined in, the notion that this was about “screeching partisanship” is even more absurd. I mean, even Rick Santorum signed on. This was simply speaking truth to power, even if it alienates your friends and makes you enemies. Anyway, glad to have Glenn’s support at last. I hope he and many others in the conservative blogosphere will do all they can to support the measure in the House and oppose the threatened White House veto.

I’m wiped out but still exhilarated by what just happened in the Senate. The McCain amendment barring cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of military detainees by any American personnel anywhere in the world just passed by 90 votes to 9. I’m somewhat shocked by the margin of victory – but shocked in the best way imaginable. Marty Lederman celebrates here. I am completely convinced that the courage of Ian Fishback contributed to this – as did your support and the support of every patriot eager to restore honor and integrity to the armed services. I write this with tears in my eyes. Dick Cheney and George W. Bush got a mere nine votes to continue their policy of condoning or ignoring abuse and torture – an extraordinary rebuke to their immoral, feckless and inhumane management of the war. Their threatened veto has been blown out of the water in the Senate. We still have the House vote, of course, and the committee process. This is by no means over yet, and we can expect Cheney and Rumsfeld to fight hard to keep their policies in place. But the margin of victory in the Senate is a huge success for John McCain, John Warner, Lindsey Graham, Carl Levin and all those who knew what was at stake here. Captain Fishback’s courage and integrity have helped bring an end to the disgrace and confusion which has so tarred what was and is a noble cause in Iraq and Afghanistan. One man can make a difference. Now, to the House … Email your congressmen and women and tell them how strongly you support this new law – giving clarity to the troops on detention policies for the first time, and potentially restoring, after three terrible years, the honor of the United States.

McCAIN’S STATEMENT: If only this man were president today:

Mr. President, war is an awful business. I know that. I don’t think I’m naxefve about how severe are the wages of war, and how terrible are the things that must be done to wage it successfully. It is a grim, dark business, and no matter how noble the cause for which it is fought, no matter how valiant the service, many veterans spend much of their subsequent lives trying to forget not only what was done to them and their comrades, but some of what had to be done by their hand to prevail.

I don’t mourn the loss of any terrorist’s life nor do I care if in the course of serving their ignoble cause they suffer great harm. They have pledged their lives to the intentional destruction of innocent lives, and they have earned their terrible punishment in this life and the next.

What I do regret, what I do mourn, and what I do care very much about is what we lose, what we — the American serviceman and woman and the great nation they defend at the risk of their lives – what we lose when by official policy or by official negligence – we allow, confuse or encourage our soldiers to forget that best sense of ourselves, our greatest strength – that we are different and better than our enemies; that we fight for an idea – not a tribe, not a land, not a king, not a twisted interpretation of an ancient religion – but for an idea that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights.

I have been asked before where did the brave men I was privileged to serve with in Vietnam draw the strength to resist to the best of their ability the cruelties inflicted on them by our enemies. Well, we drew strength from our faith in each other, from our faith in God, and from our faith in our country. Our enemies didn’t adhere to the Geneva Convention. Many of my comrades were subjected to very cruel, very inhumane and degrading treatment, a few of them even unto death. But everyone of us knew, every single one of us knew and took great strength from the belief that we were different from our enemies, that we were better than them, that we, if the roles were reversed, would not disgrace ourselves by committing or countenancing such mistreatment of them. That faith was indispensable not only to our survival, but to our attempts to return home with honor. Many of the men I served with would have preferred death to such dishonor.

The enemies we fight today hold such liberal notions in contempt, as they hold the international conventions that enshrine them such as the Geneva Conventions and the treaty on torture in contempt. I know that. But we’re better than them, and we are the stronger for our faith. And we will prevail. I submit to my colleagues that it is indispensable to our success in this war that our servicemen and women know that in the discharge of their dangerous responsibilities to their country they are never expected to forget that they are Americans, the valiant defenders of a sacred idea of how nations should govern their own affairs and their relations with others – even our enemies.

Those who return to us and those who give their lives for us are entitled to that honor. And those of us who have given them this onerous duty are obliged by our history, and by the sacrifices – the many terrible sacrifices — that have been made in our defense – we are obliged to make clear to them that they need not risk their or their country’s honor to prevail; that they are always, always – through the violence, chaos and heartache of war, through deprivation and cruelty and loss – they are always, always Americans, and different, better, and stronger than those who would destroy us.

God bless them as he has blessed us with their service.

What more is there to say? I always believed McCain was a giant of a man. We are all in his debt today.

COLIN POWELL’S LETTER: Here’s the text of the letter Colin Powell wrote in support of the amendment:

Oct 5, 2005

Dear Senator McCain,

I have read your proposed amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill concerning the use of the Army Field Manual as the definitive guidance for the conduct of our troops with respect to detainees. I have also studied your impressive statement introducing the amendment.

I fully support this amendment. Further, I join General Shalikashvili and the long list of other senior officers who have written you a letter in support of the Amendment.

Our troops need to hear from the Congress, which has an obligation to speak to such matters under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. I also believe the world will note that America is making a clear statement with respect to the expected future behavior of our soldiers. Such a reaction will help deal with the terrible public diplomacy crisis created by Abu Ghraib.

Sincerely,

General Colin L. Powell, USA (Retired)

Powell, to his eternal credit, tried to stop this cancer at the very beginning. We have now made a huge leap toward stopping it for good. Thank you too for your hundreds of emails to Fishback which helped steel his nerves. Once again, the blogosphere made a difference.

Just got to the West Coast for a talk at Claremont McKenna tomorrow and then Bill Maher on Friday. Crashing now …

New polling confirms the disappointment.

“Conservatives, I thought, were supposed to believe ideas have consequences, that American institutions – chief among them the Supreme Court and the Constitution – have specific and organic roles to play in the culture which depend on intellectual honesty, opposition to cant, and a dispassionate rejection of the politicization of the law. The reliable vote argument — absent other rationales — runs counter to all of these. This becomes obvious when you imagine a Democratic President appointing a confidante with few obvious credentials for the Supreme Court. A president Kerry could hardly convince any of us that his pick should be confirmed because she’s a reliable vote.” – Jonah Goldberg, NRO. Just compare that to Stanley Kurtz’s recent contribution to the debate. Kudos to the Corner for their open debate.

Here’s the text of an amendment being proposed by Senator McCain to end the awful legacy of unclear guidelines, condoned abuse, orchestrated cruelty and intermittent torture of detainees by a small minority of U.S. forces in Iraq, with the full cognizance of many of their superiors:

MCCAIN AMENDMENT SA 1977

TEXT OF AMENDMENT

SA 1977. Mr. MCCAIN (for himself, Mr. GRAHAM, Mr. HAGEL, Mr. SMITH, and Ms. COLLINS) submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill H.R. 2863, making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2006, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

At the appropriate place, insert the following:

SEC. __. UNIFORM STANDARDS FOR THE INTERROGATION OF PERSONS UNDER THE DETENTION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE.

(a) IN GENERAL.-No person in the custody or under the effective control of the Department of Defense or under detention in a Department of Defense facility shall be subject to any treatment or technique of interrogation not authorized by and listed in the United States Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation.

(b) APPLICABILITY.-Subsection (a) shall not apply to with respect to any person in the custody or under the effective control of the Department of Defense pursuant to a criminal law or immigration law of the United States.

(c) CONSTRUCTION.-Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect the rights under the United States Constitution of any person in the custody or under the physical jurisdiction of the United States.

SEC. __. PROHIBITION ON CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT OF PERSONS UNDER CUSTODY OR CONTROL OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.

(a) In General.-No individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.

[Page S10909]

(b) Construction.-Nothing in this section shall be construed to impose any geographical limitation on the applicability of the prohibition against cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment under this section.

(c) Limitation on Supersedure.-The provisions of this section shall not be superseded, except by a provision of law enacted after the date of the enactment of this Act which specifically repeals, modifies, or supersedes the provisions of this section.

(d) Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Defined.-In this section, the term “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment” means the cruel, unusual, and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, as defined in the United States Reservations, Declarations and Understandings to the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment done at New York, December 10, 1984.

Clear enough. Senator Warner is on board and is currently battling Senator Frist to get this debated and added to the military appropriations bill. The White House, determined to protect their own conduct of the war against any Congressional interference, is resisting hard. Money quote:

The stalemate began in July when Frist, R-Tenn., who shepherds President Bush’s agenda through the Senate by deciding what bills get a vote, abruptly stopped debate on the bill. That avoided a high-profile fight over amendments, supported by Warner and sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., restricting the Pentagon’s handling of detainees in the war on terror. The White House had threatened to veto the entire measure over the issue and sent Vice President Dick Cheney to Capitol Hill to press the administration’s opposition.

It would be an extremely rare veto for president Bush, designed for just one thing: to protect his prerogative to alllow the torture of detainees. Whatever your view of the past, doesn’t a clear definition of what is and is not permitted make sense? And isn’t a legislative act clearly forbidding abuse of prisoners a no-brainer? Surely this is something even Bush supporters can sign off on. It’s something you can email your senator about. Bloggers: join the campaign to end this abuse.

It’s amazing what one man’s courage can do. The NYT today reports that more decent servicemembers are coming forward to testify to abuse orchestrated and condoned by their superiors. McCain is more impressed with Fishback’s integrity: “I’m even more impressed by what a fine and honorable officer he is.” I am reminded of the now famous remarks from Robert F. Kennedy:

Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality of those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change. Aristotle tells us that “At the Olympic games it is not the finest and the strongest men who are crowned, but they who enter the lists…. So too in the life of the honorable and the good it is they who act rightly who win the prize.” I believe that in this generation those with the courage to enter the moral conflict will find themselves with companions in every corner of the world.

In the next generation, we have found a new integrity. And with luck and perseverance from good, unimpeachable men like Senators Warner, McCain, Graham and Levin, these new heroes will restore the honor of this country.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY: “What you allowed to happen happened. Trends were accepted. Leadership failed to provide clear guidance so we just developed it. They wanted intel. As long as no PUCs [Persons Under Control, i.e. Geneva-protected detainees] came up dead it happened. We heard rumors of PUCs dying so we were careful. We kept it to broken arms and legs and shit. If a leg was broken you call the PA – the physician’s assistant – and told him the PUC got hurt when he was taken. He would get Motrin [a pain reliever] and maybe a sling, but no cast or medical treatment…” – sergeant A, on what went on (and he believes is still going on) at Camp Mercury in Iraq. Greg Djerejian demands an answer to a simple question: “Please name me the officers have have been criminally charged (no not administrative discipline, letters of reprimand, demotions, fines). No, not even Karpinski and Pappas.” But if they start charging the officers who allowed this, they will have to ask who told the officers it was ok, and if they do that … well, you can see what’s going on. This goes all the way to Bush. And the president wants it to stay at Lynndie England. Only more Fishbacks can call the bluff of these people. And only McCain can force them to return to decency. Update: Wes Clark is getting on board.

Lots of people are now complaining about the Bush spending habit. Here’s my piece from two years ago. Anyone who voted for the guy has, to my mind, somewhat tattered standing to criticize the spending now. On fiscal matters, there was one big difference between Bush and Kerry last November. Kerry backed the pay-as-you-go principle, where every new piece of spending would be offset by a spending cut. Operation Offset, anyone? And with a Republican Congress, you can bet your life government spending would be far lower under president Kerry than it now is under president George “Whatever it costs” Bush. From my Kerry endorsement last fall:

Domestically, the record is horrifying for a fiscal conservative. Ronald Reagan raised taxes in his first term when he had to; and he didn’t have 9/11 to contend with. Ronald Reagan also cut domestic spending. Bush has been unable to muster the conservative courage to do either. He has spent like a drunken liberal Democrat. He has failed to grapple with entitlement reform, as he once promised. He has larded up the tax code with endless breaks for corporate special interests; pork has metastasized; and he has tainted the cause of tax relief by concentrating too much of it on the wealthy. He has made the future boomer fiscal crunch far more acute by adding a hugely expensive new Medicare prescription drug entitlement.

Would anyone care to disagree now? By the way, I’m glad to see that the NYT’s John Tierney has endorsed a 50 cent increase in the gas tax. Sorry I can’t link.

A PATTERN OF ABUSE: Beyond the abuse and torture of detained Iraqi prisoners, we also have the issue of general treatment of the Iraqi population. The Dayton Daily News has just done a study on how the military has acted in response to mistreatment of Iraqi civilians. The results are to any reader of this blog unsurprising:

Using previously undisclosed Army records, the Dayton Daily News found that dozens of soldiers have been accused of crimes against Iraqis since the first troops deployed for Iraq. But despite strong evidence and convictions in some cases, only a small percentage resulted in punishments nearing those routinely imposed for such crimes by civilian justice systems. In a number of other cases, there was no evidence that thorough or timely criminal investigations were conducted. Other cases weren’t prosecuted, and still others resulted in dismissals, light jail sentences or no jail sentence at all… Charges involving Iraqi victims were three times more likely to be dismissed or withdrawn by the Army than cases in which the victims were soldiers or civilian military employees, the examination found… In a number of incidents in which soldiers were accused of killing civilian noncombatants, the Daily News found the Army did not conduct thorough or timely criminal investigations, or there was no evidence any investigation was conducted.

This is not in the same league as abusing defenseless prisoners, and shouldn’t be confused with it. And obviously, it’s tense and back-breaking work in Iraq and some of this is inevitable in wartime. But the military climate over there – set by commanders – is not conducive to winning over the Iraqi public. And so it doesn’t help our cause. I wish we had a Pentagon leadership more attuned to this. But, of course, we don’t.

Two more for the record:

“Dear Captain Fishback,
It’s far too easy these days to feel demoralized about the state of so many things in America. It seems as if our nation has been afflicted by a kind of creeping stupor in which most of us turn away from the hard truths – not because we’re bad people, or uncompassionate people, or lazy people, but because too often speaking out seems futile. And of course, that is the most deadening, demoralizing thing of all – that so many of us won’t even bother to protest what’s so obviously wrong on so many levels. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for reminding me of what’s right about our country, and what must never be lost. Few of us will have – or take – the opportunity to stand for what’s right in such a meaningful way. Few of us have the authority and credibility that you do. But every one of us has the obligation to say what needs to be said, in matters of conscience large and small.
Today, I begin. You’ve made this a better country. Most of us don’t know that yet. But we will. I’ve never claimed a hero before because I’ve never known of anyone in my lifetime worthy of that title. I have one now. I hope you can feel the presence of so many of us standing right behind you.”

I forwarded another 80 or so emails today to Ian via his lawyer and family. In the end, I decided reprinting them all on the Letters Page would be too onerous a task, and perhaps unnecessary after posting many here. All I can let you know is that I have been told on very good authority that this blog-effort has been appreciated. Fishback is not alone. And if he didn’t know it before, he knows it now. Thanks for all your emails. You give me hope that one day soon, we can end this policy of abuse. Finally, this:

Dear CPT Fishback,
My proudest moment as an American came in Munich in 1992, when an old man waved my car down on a deserted street on a rainy Sunday morning. He pointed at my license and asked if I was an American soldier, then proceeded to tell me that he had been in the Italian army in WWII. Captured during the war, he was went to a US-based EPW camp.
I’ll never forget his praise: “The Americans treated us so well, and the food! I eat better in American than with Italian army. You treat us so well, we were your prisoner but we were safe in the camp. I always love America.”
Fifty years after the war, we had won the enemy’s heart. I fear that fifty years after this war, we’ll still be fighting people who weren’t originally our enemies because of what we did to their countrymen in Abu Ghraib and a dozen other places.
Thank you for standing up to right this wrong. You have validated my belief in our junior officers and your actions reflect the moral courage that we should all aspire to as members of the Long Gray Line.

Amen.

I have no idea if this is true, but it’s worth looking into. In a piece dedicated to explaining why India joined the U.S. and the EU3 in referring Iran to the Security Council for breaching its agreement to curtail the development of nukes, the Calcutta Telegraph states:

Top-ranking Americans have told equally top-ranking Indians in recent weeks that the US has plans to invade Iran before Bush’s term ends. In 2002, a year before the US invaded Iraq, high-ranking Americans had similarly shared their definitive vision of a post-Saddam Iraq, making it clear that they would change the regime in Baghdad.
On the last day of his stay in New York this month, Singh made public his fears for the safety of nearly four million Indians in the Gulf in the event of diplomacy failing to persuade Iran away from a confrontation with the US and others on the nuclear issue.

Hmmm. How reliable a source is the Calcutta Telegraph?