Unchained Melody

Beware of pretty faces that you find
A pretty face can hide an evil mind
--Secret Agent Man, Johnny Rivers

Bond: I thought one less bomb maker in the world would be a good thing.
M: Oh, one bomb maker.
We're trying to figure out an entire network
of terrorists I financed and you give us one bomb maker.
Hardly the big picture, wouldn't you say?
--Casino Royale (2006)
_____________

The system of checks and balances built into the U.S. system of governance is supposed to insure that no branch will become so powerful as to subdue the others.

A federal judge recently excused the Central Intelligence Agency from releasing documents relating to their destruction of videotapes of the 9-11 detainee interrogations (Ruling on Interrogation Documents). Is the C.I.A. a member of one of the governmental branches? Is the military? What exactly are these agencies when looking at the constitutionally?

They must be executive since they're clearly not judicial or legislative. If they are anything but executive, then how will legal proceedings affect their actions? If the director of the C.I.A. can make national security decisions that are exclusive of judicial action, then the C.I.A. director has achieved a mini-dictator status.

When a federal judge places national security issues beyond the rule of law, then we find our nation beyond the law. No governmental agency should be sacrosanct -- even when invoking national security interests.

National security is not a legal construct and criminal behavior should not be allowed to hide behind this hollow concept. If we accept criminal behavior as a national security issue then the concept of law is irrelevant.

It was once a national motto that no one is above the law. In USA 2009, this has been superseded. As with the individual, so it was with the agencies of law, but with this ruling the old ways are overcome by events.

The C.I.A. is now officially and judicially above the law. Even if Attorney General Holder goes ahead with torture inquiries, there is now a precedent behind which torture can hide. Not one of Lady Liberty's finest hours.

However, as we see our greatness flicker, across the pond there are still people who are not seeking the clever technical out.

"An Italian prosecutor on Wednesday urged a court in Milan to sentence 26 Americans to 10 to 13 years in prison each for the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in a rendition operation by the C.I.A."

"The Americans, all but one identified by prosecutors as C.I.A. operatives, are being tried in absentia and are considered fugitives by the Italian court. The defense must still make its final arguments; a verdict is expected by the end of the year (Italy: Prosecution Rests in CIA Rendition Case.)

So there are still western civilized nations that place legality above security. The Italians obviously know how to deal with fascistic behavior. When courts allow the C.I.A. to get away with their criminal behavior, we are one step closer to becoming a fascistic society.

Wild World

Look inside, look inside your tiny mind
and look a bit harder
cause we’re so uninspired
so sick and tired
of all the hatred you harbor
--Fuck You Very Much, Lily Allen

I ain't like that no more
--The Unforgiven (1992)

But let judgment run down as waters,
and righteousness as a mighty stream
--Amos 5:24
_______________

If President Obama wishes to strike a conciliatory and forgiving pose, he would do well to remember his scripture.

In our democracy, judgment rolls down from a judiciary adhering to the rule of law. The president's job is not to impede the workings of our tripartite system. We've had enough unitary executive, thanks.

In the spirit of the recently released torture memos, Ranger will discuss "Communist Interrogation and Indoctrination" from a 1966 Special Warfare Center publication [U.S. Army Intelligence School, Department of Combat Intelligence #9808.]

Interesting title page disclaimer: "This article [73 pages] was reproduced with the permission of the American Medical Association and the authors." Interesting because of the complicity we have recently read about on the part of medical personnel in the Enhanced Interrogation [EIT] process.

This document on Communist terror tactics was one of the sources of inspiration for the architects of the EIT in the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©).

"In the US, it is said that a man is 'arrested' when the police seize him, detain him, or otherwise deprive him of his freedom; and US law requires that the police obtain a 'warrant' or comply with certain other legal procedures before carrying out an arrest. . . . In the Soviet Union, the KGB may 'detain' a man on suspicion and interrogate him 'to see if he is a criminal.'

"For more than 20 years it has been the practice of the Russian State police to seize their suspects in the middle of the night. The 'midnight knock on the door' has become a standard episode in the fiction about Russia" . . .

And now, in the U.S., too! When the U.S. arrests Iraqis and Afghanis, it usually happens at night.

"A third method, said to be preferred when there is no warrant, is to seize the victim suddenly as he walks down the street."

The extraordinary renditions (= street snatches) in Italy followed this old Soviet standby. The KGB would be proud. There is a reason Mr. Bush could see into Putin's soul.

"According to Soviet administrative principle, a man who is arrested by the state police is not 'imprisoned.' He is merely 'detained.' In theory, he is detained in a quiet, healthy atmosphere where he has an opportunity to meditate upon his crimes, and a chance to talk them over freely and at length with police officers, without being prejudiced by friends, associates, or lawyers, who might induce him to distort the truth."

Isn't this entertaining?! Who would have thought after Uncle Ronnie's Wall speech we would import the nasty Soviet techniques into our own Central Intelligence Agency? If the KGB's actions were evil in '66, then why are the CIA's copycat activities not illegal in 2009?

"The KGB hardly ever uses manacles or chains, and rarely resorts to physical beatings. The actual physical beating is, of course, repugnant to overt Communist principles, and is contrary to KGB regulations, also. The ostensible reason for these regulations is that they are contrary to Communist principles. The practical reason for them is that the KGB looks upon direct physical brutality as an ineffective method of obtaining compliance of the prisoner. . . . In general, [brutality] creates only resentment, hostility, further defiance, and unreliable statements."

In following their manual, we forgot to notice their caveats. It appears the U.S. just picked out the nasty bits to use as a matter of policy, ignoring the disclaimers that these things just might not work. In fact, worse than being duds, they might backfire.

"Throughout the entire interrogation period, the prisoner is under some form of medical observation. Prison physicians are familiar with all the effects produced under KGB procedures, and evidently they are skilled at judging just how far the various procedures can be carried out without killing or permanently damaging the prisoner. . . . The unintended death of a prisoner during the interrogation procedure is regarded as a serious error on the part of the prison officials."

Yeah , and we're not foolin' here -- unintended murder = serious error! It's not like any heads are gonna roll, but definitely an error. Akin to not buckling up when you take your driving test. Big error.

This technique was adapted from U.S.'s Survival, Resistance, Evasion and Escape (SERE) training that taught resistance to Communist interrogation and indoctrination efforts. The fact that U.S. medical personnel would participate willingly in such perversions of the medical code exceeds our ability to comment.

"In typical Communist legalistic fashion, the NKVD rationalized its use of torture and pressures in the interrogation of prisoners of war. When it desired to use such methods against a prisoner or to obtain from him a propaganda statement or 'confession' it simply declared the prisoner a 'war-crimes suspect' and informed him that, therefore, he was not subject to international rules governing the treatment of prisoners of war."

This is so cute -- "in typical Communist legalistic fashion." Right-o.

The U.S. denied that PWOT detainees were legitimate combatants and proceeded to hang every nomenclature conceivable around their necks to enable the U.S. to ignore the Geneva Conventions. That is just so typical America, 21st century.

Our nation spent a generation or more fighting Communism, and now we have appropriated their techniques. What a wild world.

Janus-faced

We cannot meet the future either by mere gross
materialism or by mere silly sentimentalism;
above all, we cannot meet it if we attempt to balance gross
materialism in action by silly sentimentalism in words
--President Theodore Roosevelt,
Memorial Day, 1916
____________

Two stories clashed on the same page in our local paper recently (Tallahassee Democrat, p 15A, 5/21/08.) We'll call it a case of situational ethics.

First, President Bush apologized to Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for an American sniper's shooting of a Koran (Bush Apologizes to Iran for Quran Shooting.)

Second, an audit shows that not too many FBI agents deigned to "engage in terror tactics" when interviewing detainees. Depending on which news outlet you read, this is either a bragging point or a great shame.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) said, "While I take comfort in knowing that, for the most part, FBI field agents followed the agency's policies regarding interrogations, I find it very disturbing that many senior FBI and DOJ officials failed to take strong action after identifying interrogation abuses."

Some of the agents seemed embarrassed at the Howdy-Doody nature of events:

"At Guantanamo Bay, two FBI agents 'had concerns not only about the proposed techniques but also about the glee with which the would-be [military] participants discussed their respective roles in carrying out these techniques, and the utter lack of sophistication and circus-like atmosphere within this interrogation strategy session,' the report found."

The Justice Department audit exonerated most of the FBI agents, who "refused to participate when detainees were questioned under harsh and potentially illegal methods." But the AP report gave a free pass given to the CIA and military interrogators, whom the FBI agents reported had perpetrated the abuses.

There is no potential to it; all of the listed methods, including short-shackling to concrete floors and stress positions, are illegal. When did America cross this street? The FBI and Justice Department should have done more to stop the illegal interrogations, vs. just turning their collective backs.

A chart accompanying the article is titled, "Few agents engage in terror tactics;" subtitled, "Many FBI agents refused to participate in terror interrogations against detainees at military bases in Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan." Comforting, no?

The chart lists abuses reported by FBI agents, 34 of which included "abuse of the Quran." Somebody was engaging in these FBI-reported terrorizing incidents of detainees, but thank goodness not many of the Men in Black played along, at least according to their own reportage.

But of those 34 abuses of the Quran, defilements of religious icons aimed at breaking accused terrorists to their will: Mr. Bush has not apologized for those tax-paid interrogators who desecrated the Quran during secret interrogations, so why the apology for the shooting?

A bit hypocritical to apologize for one incidence of offense while allowing implicit institutional endorsement for many other identical offenses via Department of Defense policy, y'think?

Gerrymandering Torture

Under torture. . .everything you have heard told,
everything you have read returns to your mind,
as if you were being transported, not toward heaven,
but toward hell.

Under torture you say not only what the inquisitor wants,
but also what you imagine might please him, because a bond
(this, truly, diabolical) is established between you and him
--Umberto Eco
__________

In his recent "Damage That Must Be Undone," on the use of waterboarding by the CIA, Eugene Robinson gives a nod to John McCain: "[He] experienced torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam; he is passionate about this issue and knows it is a matter of right and wrong, with no gray area in between."

While it is a given that McCain was a POW in North Vietnam and was tortured, it occurred to me that the tables could be turned on this perspective. Using their own brush to tar them, according to the architects of the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©), John McCain and fellows more correctly could be called "illegal enemy combatants." Consider:

1. There was no declared state of belligerency, i.e., no state of war or declaration of war
2. The U.S. was, in effect, trying to bomb NVN back into the Stone Age
3. U.S. bombing of NVN could be seen as a disproportionate response to NVA support of the Vietcong insurgency during McCain's time of capture
4. Civilian targets were being bombed
5. Civilians were purposely killed
6. NVN was a sovereign nation, and therefore had the right to imprison the hostile pilots bombing their country.

Having said this, Ranger does not endorse or support the fact that U.S. personnel were tortured by the NVN. My purpose is to consider an alternate perspective. Why is John McCain a POW, while the inmates at Gitmo are not?

According to the GWB/Cheney/CIA formula, the torture of McCain and his fellow aviators was justified, as the NVN were anticipating future attacks and torture was the only avenue for them to get their intelligence in an expeditious manner. This info was essential from the NVN viewpoint in order for them to prepare their defensive posture. If it is right for the U.S., then it is right for the Vietnamese. And if it is right, god help us.

Robinson ends on a preternaturally happy "never again" note. However, Faust McCain will not countermand George W. Bush's policies, Obama lacks the depth to do so and Clinton will not fight the civilian and military security and intelligence communities.

The shame of torture will not be removed via back room legalistic manuevers. Only a painful and direct address of the issue will set the matter straight. No legal gerrymandering of agencies entitled to torture.

The Hotel Hilton in Hanoi or Gitmo -- what is the difference?

CIA or CYA?

But that I am forbid/To tell the secrets of my
prison house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine.
--Hamlet (I, v), William Shakespeare

Where secrecy or mystery begins,
vice or roguery is not far off
--Samuel Johnson
__________

The Justice Department announced last week that it has opened a formal criminal investigation into the CIA's destruction of interrogation tapes, appointing a career prosecutor "to examine whether intelligence officials broke the law by destroying videos of exceptionally harsh questioning [a.k.a. "torture"] of terrorism suspects" (Criminal probe on CIA Tapes Opened.)

The question is, did intelligence officials break the law by torturing suspects? Whether justice will be served revolves around the handling of the facts: is the questioning of suspects a criminal matter to be adjudicated in a legally constituted court, OR, will the intelligence remain secret by dint of its, uh, secretness, and the suspects shipped off to gulags?

Once a prisoner is tortured, the testimony is fruit of a poisoned tree, and would be inadmissible in a court of law. It is not possible to Miranda someone before you start torturing them, remembering that the CIA is not a police agency nor a prison administration.

"The decision opens the door to fresh scrutiny of the CIA's activities by the FBI, which clashed repeatedly with CIA field officers over the use of the harsh interrogation techniques and ultimately withdrew its own agents from interrogations to avoid entanglement in activities that senior FBI officials considered improper."

"Improper" is a Miss Manners words. White shoes after Labor day is "improper;" using a dessert fork at dinner is improper. Torture is illegal.

"The CIA issued a statement promising to 'cooperate fully with this investigation,' which senior officials had expected." Ranger will believe this when it is conclusively shown that the White House cooperated in the Libby investigation. When white rabbits run 'round with pocket watches.

The entire investigation is a distracting farce to take the Congress away from pressing issues. The core issue is that the White House issued illegal directives to the CIA and contract personnel authorizing the use of torture. Even if CIA personnel are found guilty of torture, it is a lesser fact than that of the operating order which approved the action.

It is disgusting that any organ of the U.S. government would torture people. More disgusting yet that the leaders giving these orders were never willing to put their asses on the line, and have suffered nothing more onerous personally than poor quality cocaine or booze. If there is a god, there will be hell to pay.

If charges are brought and a trial ensues, the administration will claim state secrets as a defense. Failing that, George W. Bush will commute or pardon. Ranger prognostication: broad Presidential pardons for CIA personnel before this duck leaves office (Libby will get his, too.) The entire process is a charade that besmirches the integrity of the U.S. legal system.

"Although the tapes in question were not provided to any court or to the members of the government-appointed 9/11 Commission, they were evidently seen by CIA Inspector General John L. Helgerson, who disclosed in a statement yesterday that he plans to recuse himself from the criminal inquiry to avoid a conflict of interest."

Imagine the gall of this guy, recusing himself now. His actions, like those of the CIA directors who allowed the tapes' destruction, should be a focus of a criminal investigation. Administration attorneys are co-conspirators and should be viewed as such.

It is an impossible beast -- a CIA interrogation linked with the concept of prosecution and conviction. It can only be a show-trial. Is this song-and-dance what suffices as justice today?