“Why We Can’t See the Trees or the Forest: The Torture Memos and Historical Amnesia.” A good analysis from Noam Chomsky, loaded with historical anecdotes long-lost from the American political psyche, I’m sure.

The torture memos released by the White House elicited shock, indignation, and surprise. The shock and indignation are understandable. The surprise, less so. For one thing, even without inquiry, it was reasonable to suppose that Guantanamo was a torture chamber. Why else send prisoners where they would be beyond the reach of the law - a place, incidentally, that Washington is using in violation of a treaty forced on Cuba at the point of a gun? Security reasons were, of course, alleged, but they remain hard to take seriously.

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Obama did not shut down the practice of torture, Nairn observes, but “merely repositioned it,” restoring it to the American norm, a matter of indifference to the victims. “[H]is is a return to the status quo ante,” writes Nairn, “the torture regime of Ford through Clinton, which, year by year, often produced more U.S.-backed strapped-down agony than was produced during the Bush/Cheney years.”

Sometimes the American engagement in torture was even more indirect. In a 1980 study, Latin Americanist Lars Schoultz found that U.S. aid “has tended to flow disproportionately to Latin American governments which torture their citizens,… to the hemisphere’s relatively egregious violators of fundamental human rights.” Broader studies by Edward Herman found the same correlation, and also suggested an explanation. Not surprisingly, U.S. aid tends to correlate with a favorable climate for business operations, commonly improved by the murder of labor and peasant organizers and human rights activists and other such actions, yielding a secondary correlation between aid and egregious violation of human rights.

These studies took place before the Reagan years, when the topic was not worth studying because the correlations were so clear.

Small wonder that President Obama advises us to look forward, not backward — a convenient doctrine for those who hold the clubs. Those who are beaten by them tend to see the world differently, much to our annoyance.

There is a reader who posted comments in response to this article about it having been easier during the Cold War to dismiss Chomsky as a leftist ideologue, but that today his writing seems much more reasonable and accurate. I agree. I am definitely another of those who found his analysis to be much easier to dismiss during that period than today, now that the veil of anti-communist resistance has been ripped off the festering hypocrisy that underlies American policies.

Read The Full Article

Good points from Paul Krugman on the false choice of having to either focus on the future or focus on the past.

…America is more than a collection of policies. We are, or at least we used to be, a nation of moral ideals. In the past, our government has sometimes done an imperfect job of upholding those ideals. But never before have our leaders so utterly betrayed everything our nation stands for. “This government does not torture people,” declared former President Bush, but it did, and all the world knows it.

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What about the argument that investigating the Bush administration’s abuses will impede efforts to deal with the crises of today? Even if that were true - even if truth and justice came at a high price - that would arguably be a price we must pay: laws aren’t supposed to be enforced only when convenient. But is there any real reason to believe that the nation would pay a high price for accountability?

For example, would investigating the crimes of the Bush era really divert time and energy needed elsewhere? Let’s be concrete: whose time and energy are we talking about?

Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, wouldn’t be called away from his efforts to rescue the economy. Peter Orszag, the budget director, wouldn’t be called away from his efforts to reform health care. Steven Chu, the energy secretary, wouldn’t be called away from his efforts to limit climate change. Even the president needn’t, and indeed shouldn’t, be involved. All he would have to do is let the Justice Department do its job - which he’s supposed to do in any case - and not get in the way of any Congressional investigations.

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Others, I suspect, would rather not revisit those years because they don’t want to be reminded of their own sins of omission.

For the fact is that officials in the Bush administration instituted torture as a policy, misled the nation into a war they wanted to fight and, probably, tortured people in the attempt to extract “confessions” that would justify that war. And during the march to war, most of the political and media establishment looked the other way.

It’s hard, then, not to be cynical when some of the people who should have spoken out against what was happening, but didn’t, now declare that we should forget the whole era - for the sake of the country, of course.

Sorry, but what we really should do for the sake of the country is have investigations both of torture and of the march to war. These investigations should, where appropriate, be followed by prosecutions - not out of vindictiveness, but because this is a nation of laws.

We need to do this for the sake of our future. For this isn’t about looking backward, it’s about looking forward - because it’s about reclaiming America’s soul.

To those who say we need to ‘turn the page’ and ‘move forward’, you’ve got to read the page first before you have the right to turn it.

Read The Full Article from The New York Times

This is actually pretty amazing on many levels…

Fox News’ Shepard Smith says “We’re America! We Don’t F**cking Torture!!!”

You know, when the right starts to eat it’s own over this, you know something is going on. It is also quite likely a sign that this issue isn’t close to going away anytime soon. It may well be months and months, maybe even into years for it to fester into something that will result in actual sweeping transformation of the mechanisms of accountability in the world of governance in our society. But it will happen.

Watch The Video (Special thanks to Brad Friedman of The Brad Blog for the posting)

As an American I find this embarrassing. We have become so derelict in our legal and moral responsibilities that we have to leave it to the Spanish to take the lead in enforcing what are not only international laws but American laws (to say nothing of principles), which unequivocally ban the use of torture in any circumstance and for any reason.

I guess it is no surprise, though, that the Spanish are taking the lead on this considering their groundbreaking role in enforcing international human rights law with the precedent-setting criminal indictments submitted by Spanish courts back in the late 90’s for the extradition of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Though they didn’t get him at the time, they certainly raised the bar of accountability which is now coming into play on issues like this.

A Spanish court has initiated criminal proceedings against six former officials of the Bush administration. John Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, William Haynes and Douglas Feith may face charges in Spain for authorizing torture at Guantánamo Bay….

Does Spain have the authority to prosecute Americans for crimes that didn’t take place on Spanish soil?

The answer is yes. It’s called “universal jurisdiction.” Universal jurisdiction is a well-established theory that countries, including the United States, have used for many years to investigate and prosecute foreign nationals for crimes that shock the conscience of the global community. It provides a critical legal tool to hold accountable those who commit crimes against the law of nations, including war crimes and crimes against humanity. Without universal jurisdiction, many of the most notorious criminals would go free. Countries that have used this as a basis to prosecute the most serious of crimes should be commended for their courage. They help to create a just world in which we all seek to live.

Israel used universal jurisdiction to prosecute, convict and execute Adolph Eichmann for his crimes during the Holocaust, even they had no direct relationship with Israel.

A federal court in Miami recently convicted Chuckie Taylor, son of the former Liberian president, of torture that occurred in Liberia. A U.S. court sentenced Taylor to 97 years in prison in January.

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When the United States ratified the Convention Against Torture, it promised to extradite or prosecute those who commit, or are complicit in, the commission of torture.

And before some readers get in a snit about this being a subversion of American sovereignty by those pinkos at the U.N., keep in mind it was the United States which helped establish the very notion of universal jurisdiction way back in 1789 with the Alien Tort Claims Act.

Read the full article in The San Francisco Chronicle

Lady Justitia will only be played and spurned so long before she will claim her due…

A top Spanish court has moved toward starting a probe of six former Bush administration officials including ex-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in connection with alleged torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay,The New York Times said on Saturday.

The criminal investigation would focus on whether they violated international law by providing a legalistic justification for torture at the U.S. detention camp in Cuba, the Times said.

The paper said the National Court in Madrid had assigned the case to judge Baltasar Garzon, known for ordering the arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet .

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Gonzalo Boye, a Madrid lawyer who filed the complaint, said the six Americans had well-documented roles in approving illegal interrogation techniques, redefining torture and abandoning the definition set by the 1984 Torture Convention, the newspaper said.

The groundbreaking work done by Human Rights advocates in holding Pinochet to account for his crimes was instrumental in raising the bar on the application of international codes of justice against former heads of state. These figures used to pretty much operate globally with immunity for their actions. Today, the story is changing, and if Americans are going to envision themselves as champions of the rule of law trumping the rule by men, then holding men accountable to those laws is an imperative act. Do we need to leave it to the Spanish to administer justice that we ourselves should be responsible for?

Read The Full Report

Interesting.

And, if there is a justice in the world, there should be big trouble for those who ordered these criminal acts. None of this is even beginning to touch some of the even bigger issues about ordering unwarranted invasions of other nations and the like, actions defined under Article 6 of Charter of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremburg, which we created in order to charge and prosecute those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and whose violation thereof warranted the execution of those responsible.

An internal Justice Department report on the conduct of senior lawyers who approved waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics is causing anxiety among former Bush administration officials. H. Marshall Jarrett, chief of the department’s ethics watchdog unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), confirmed last year he was investigating whether the legal advice in crucial interrogation memos “was consistent with the professional standards that apply to Department of Justice attorneys.” According to two knowledgeable sources who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters, a draft of the report was submitted in the final weeks of the Bush administration. It sharply criticized the legal work of two former top officials - Jay Bybee and John Yoo - as well as that of Steven Bradbury, who was chief of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) at the time the report was submitted, the sources said. (Bybee, Yoo and Bradbury did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)

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But the OPR probe began after Jack Goldsmith, a Bush appointee who took over OLC in 2003, protested the legal arguments made in the memos. Goldsmith resigned the following year after withdrawing the memos, and later wrote that he was “astonished” by the “deeply flawed” and “sloppily reasoned” legal analysis in the memos by Yoo and Bybee, including their assertion (challenged by many scholars) that the president could unilaterally disregard a law passed by Congress banning torture.

Read The Full Report

Marjorie Cohn weighs in on the issue with her piece Prosecute War Criminals and Their Lawyers, which points out that the U.S. is a signatory to the Convention Against Torture, which compels us to investigate and prosecute anyone accused of any act of torture within our jurisdiction (and actually we have the right to do it for those who committed these outside U.S. national territories as well).

Keith Olbermann not ‘beating around the bush’ so to speak. If a crime has been committed, than should the perpetrators do the time? And have these crimes really been committed? Susan J. Crawford, the convening authority of the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay seems to think so. So much for the Republicans and their frequent bloviating about law & order.

As Judge Robert Jackson, the American judge presiding over the Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal stated…

“While the United States is not first in rancor, it is not second in determination that the forces of law and order be made equal to the task of dealing with such international lawlessness…While this law is first applied against German aggressors, if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment. We are able to do away with domestic tyranny and violence and aggression by those in power against the rights of their own people only when we make *all men* (sic) answerable to the law.”

The video includes some interesting comments about the meaning of ‘compromise’ as well, and just what that means and what are we compromising with and why.

Watch The Video

Tom Engelhardt, whose essays are always pretty much spot on, does a good job here in detailing what the real, tragic legacy of the Bush administration is going to be, and why the current crop of American political leaders don’t promise any real remedy to it. Sad, but unfortunately true, especially as the fallacy of the so-called “Global War On Terror” (or should that be “Global War of Terror”?) has managed to turn the world into a free-fire zone, bankrupted the country and exposed us as potentially a nation of cowards.

Ask yourself this: If the Global War on Terror were over, what would be left? What would we be rid of? What would be changed? Would oil be, say, $60 a barrel, or even $20 a barrel? Would Russia return to being an impoverished nearly Third World country, as it was before 2001, rather than a rising energy superpower? Would the Iraq War be over? Would the Arctic Sea re-ice? Would Afghans welcome our occupation with open arms and accept our permanent bases and jails on their territory? Would all those dollars in Chinese and Middle Eastern hands return to the U.S. treasury? Would Latin America once again be the “backyard” of the United States? Would we suddenly be hailed around the world for our “victory” and feared once again as the “sole superpower,” the planetary “hyperpower”? Would we no longer be in, or near, recession? Would hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs begin flowing back into the country? Would the housing market bounce back? Would unemployment drop?

The answer to all of the above, of course, is resoundingly and repeatedly “no.” Essential power relations in the world turn out to have next to nothing to do with the war on terror (which may someday be seen as the last great ideological gasp of American globalism). In this sense, terrorism, no matter how frightening, is an ephemeral phenomenon. The fact is, non-state groups wielding terror as their weapon of choice can cause terrible pain, harm, and localized mayhem, but they simply don’t take down societies like ours. The IRA did not take down England despite years of devastating terror bombings in central London; nor did al-Qaeda take down Spain, even with a devastating bombing of trains entering a Madrid railway station. And neither the British, nor the Spanish acted as though that might happen.

The Global War on Terror’s greatest achievement — for American rulers and ruled alike — may simply have been to block out the world as it was, to block out, that is, reality. When it came to al-Qaeda’s ability to cause death in the United States, any American faced more danger simply getting into a car and hitting an American highway, taking up smoking, or possibly even (these days) going to an American suburban high school.

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Imagining how a new president and a new administration might begin to make their way out of this mindset, out of a preoccupation guaranteed to solve no problems and exacerbate many, is almost as hard as imagining a world without al-Qaeda. After all, this particular obsession has been built into our institutions, from Guantanamo to the Department of Homeland Security. It’s had the time to sink its roots into fertile soil; it now has its own industries, lobbying groups, profit centers. Unbuilding it will be a formidable task indeed. Here, then — a year early — is a Bush legacy that no new president is likely to reverse soon.

Ask yourself honestly: Can you imagine a future America without a Department of Homeland Security? Can you imagine a new administration ending the global lockdown that has become synonymous with Americanism?

The Bush administration will go, but the job it’s done on us won’t. That is the sad truth of our presidential campaign moment.

Welcome to the decaying twilight era of American empire.

Read this excellent and highly recommended overview in full Here

From the man behind “Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room” and “No End In Sight”, comes this A highly-recommended new film which takes us on the long, bumpy ride to systematic brutality.

A year from now, the presidency of George W. Bush will end, but the consequences of Mr. Bush’s policies and the arguments about them are likely to be with us for a long time. As next Jan. 20 draws near, there is an evident temptation, among many journalists as well as politicians seeking to replace Mr. Bush, to close the book and move ahead, an impulse that makes the existence of documentaries like Alex Gibney’s “Taxi to the Dark Side” all the more vital. If recent American history is ever going to be discussed with the necessary clarity and ethical rigor, this film will be essential….

The germ of this documentary’s story is the case of Dilawar, a taxi driver who was detained in Afghanistan in 2002 and who died in American custody at the prison in Bagram a few months later. Though Dilawar was never charged with any crime — and was never shown to have any connection with Al Qaeda or the Taliban — he was subjected to horrifically harsh treatment: deprived of sleep; suspended from a grated ceiling by his wrists; kicked and kneed in the legs until he could no longer stand.

The film includes remarkably frank interviews with American servicemen, some of whom faced courts-martial in connection with Dilawar’s death; with a fellow prisoner at Bagram; and with Carlotta Gall and Tim Golden, who reported on Dilawar’s story for The New York Times. “Taxi to the Dark Side,” however, does not simply recount a single, awful anecdote from the early days of the war on terror; rather, it traces the spread of a central, controversial tactic in that war. The burden of Mr. Gibney’s argument, laid out soberly and in daunting detail, is that what happened to Dilawar was not anomalous, but rather represented an early instance of what would soon be a widespread policy.

Read more on it Here from The New York Times

Robert Parry with another lesson in American history which seems to go shamefully unacknowledged by most citizens of this country. Here are just a few of the money shot statements from this comprehensive piece….

On Oct. 23, 1967, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research noted the “accumulating evidence that the [Guatemalan] counter-insurgency machine is out of control.” The report said Guatemalan “counter-terror” units were carrying out abductions, bombings, torture and summary executions “of real and alleged communists.”

The mounting death toll in Guatemala disturbed some of the American officials assigned to the country. One official, the embassy’s deputy chief of mission Viron Vaky, expressed his concerns in a remarkably candid report that he submitted on March 29, 1968, after returning to Washington.

Vaky framed his arguments in pragmatic, rather than moral, terms, but his personal anguish broke through.

“The official squads are guilty of atrocities. Interrogations are brutal, torture is used and bodies are mutilated,” Vaky wrote. “In the minds of many in Latin America, and, tragically, especially in the sensitive, articulate youth, we are believed to have condoned these tactics, if not actually encouraged them.

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“This is not only because we have concluded we cannot do anything about it, for we never really tried. Rather we suspected that maybe it is a good tactic, and that as long as Communists are being killed it is alright. Murder, torture and mutilation are alright if our side is doing it…

“Have our values been so twisted by our adversary concept of politics in the hemisphere? Is it conceivable that we are so obsessed with insurgency that we are prepared to rationalize murder as an acceptable counter-insurgency weapon? Is it possible that a nation which so revers the principle of due process of law has so easily acquiesced in this sort of terror tactic?”

Though kept secret from the American public for three decades, the Vaky memo obliterated any claim that Washington simply didn’t know the reality in Guatemala. Still, with Vaky’s memo squirreled away in State Department files, the killing went on. The repression was noted almost routinely in reports from the field.

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In the late 1970s, when Carter’s human rights coordinator, Patricia Derian, criticized the Argentine military for its “dirty war” - which included tens of thousands of “disappearances,” tortures and murders - then-political commentator Reagan joshed that she should “walk a mile in the moccasins” of the Argentine generals before criticizing them. [For details, see Martin Edwin Andersen’s Dossier Secreto.]

After his election in 1980, Reagan pushed to overturn an arms embargo imposed on Guatemala by Carter because of its ghastly human rights record. Yet even as Reagan was moving to loosen up the military aid ban, the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies were confirming new Guatemalan government massacres.

So who are the ‘terrorists’ again, and what exactly defines what actions qualify as it? This wasn’t America supporting wars for ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy.’ This is American foreign policy serving as the tool of international oligarchic plutocracy. Or as what two-time Medal of Honor recipient and Commandant of the United State Marine Corps Gen. Smedley Butler called himself and his cohorts - “gangsters for capitalism”

Read Robert Parry’s Historical Report Here