Year: 2005

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(c) Limitation on Supersedure.-The provisions of this section shall not be superseded, except by a provision of law enacted after the date of the enactment of this Act which specifically repeals, modifies, or supersedes the provisions of this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

It’s a good sign that the president seems to see the real threat this could pose to the country and basic civil order. I’m leery of using the military to deal with it, though. Maybe it’s useful to have that option available so we don’t have some kind of paralysis as we did with Katrina. Stockpiling sufficient amounts of Tamiflu and other means to ameliorate those infected might help. It’s also a good idea to stock up on canned goods and other survival items in case the worst happens and you end up in a quarantined area. Still the president is reassuring that he is on top of this. Or at least he says he is:

I take this issue very seriously, and I appreciate you bringing it to our attention. The people of the country ought to rest assured that we’re doing everything we can: We’re watching it, we’re careful, we’re in communications with the world. I’m not predicting an outbreak; I’m just suggesting to you that we better be thinking about it. And we are. And we’re more than thinking about it; we’re trying to put plans in place, and one of the plans — back to where your original question came — was, if we need to take some significant action, how best to do so. And I think the President ought to have all options on the table to understand what the consequences are, but — all assets on the table — not options — assets on the table to be able to deal with something this significant.

Notice also that Bush has been reading about the 1918 pandemic. I’ve thrown enough criticism his way lately. Time for some praise on this potentailly catastrophic scenario.

LINGUISTS UPDATE: The complete total of Arabic and Farsi linguists dismissed by the Pentagon from 1998 to 2004 because they were gay is 26.

Gay activists in London protest the Iranian regime’s hanging of gay youths. Where are the American gay groups?

An emailer writes:

Regarding your link to Peter Berkowitz’ article on funding Arabic education, I just want to make the point that it’s even more ridiculous than you think that the US government doesn’t provide more scholarships for studying Arabic. There’s already a program, the National Security Education Program, that funds up to a year of study of “less commonly studied” languages; the recipient must work for at least a year in a defense/intelligent/security position in the US government in return. Their website is here. Yet probably less than 100 students get grants each year, and only a fraction of them go to the Mid East. Why can’t the government just increase NSEP’s funding? It would be so easy and wouldn’t even require creating any additional programs. And yet…
(If it’s any consolation though, there are about 40 students enrolled in second year Arabic class here at Yale, and those students who do take Arabic are quite enthusiatic about it. So there’s hope yet.)

I might also add that six trained Arab linguists in the Pentagon were fired by the Bush administration in 2002 – for being gay. Hey, you gotta have priorities …

Bush-worshipper Hugh Hewitt clashes with principled conservative Stephen Bainbridge. Fight! Fight!

GAY VERSUS GAY: The case of Paula Ettelbrick, a lesbian “activist” and head of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, who has some questions to answer with respect to human rights abuses in Iran. I.e. why is she so craven toward the mullahs?

“With three years left in a lame duck presidency, with an exhausted and beaten-down administration that has pushed the envelope on several fronts with mixed success, I don’t think it should come as a surprise that the President might have considered this vacancy an opportunity to remind his bunch that he remembers and rewards loyalty and fidelty. ‘I know it’s 2005,’ you can imagine him telegraphing, ‘I know we are in a tail spin, Katrina hurt, Iraq hurts, our domestic agenda is stuck in the mud. But don’t give up. Don’t be tempted to leak, to leave, to surrender. Stick with me and you, too, will earn your reward.'”

AN AMERICAN HERO: The story of Captain Ian Fishback – and the most pressing moral issue in politics today. My newest column in the Sunday Times of London.