Author: James Bovard

A newly-released Pentagon-funded study entitled “Educing Information” examines the “concerns about recent U.S. interrogation activities, subsequent investigations, and the efficacy of contemporary tactics, techniques, and procedures.”

Surprise, surprise: the U.S. government has little or no idea what it is doing when it tries to beat the truth out of people. A Washington Post story on the study today noted that “no significant scientific research has been conducted in more than four decades about the effectiveness of many techniques the U.S. military and intelligence groups use regularly.”

But this does not mean torture is barren for purposes of state. Some of the key “evidence” linking Saddam and Al Qaeda was generated by torture. The fact that the “confession” later turned out to be false did nothing to resurrect the scores of thousands of people who have been killed in Iraq since the U.S. invaded.

Juan Cole, a University of Michigan history professor and an expert on the war on terrorism, observed, “Torture is what provides evidence for large important networks of terrorists where there aren’t really any, or aren’t very many, or aren’t enough to justify 800 military bases and a $500 billion military budget.”

The U.S. government has a pathetic batting average regarding alleged terrorists. The vast majority of the people the feds have accused of being terrorists or labeled as terrorist suspects have turned out to be not guilty as charged.

This has often proved embarrassing. And this may be where torture comes in. Cole asks, “How do you prove to yourself and others a big terror threat that requires a National Security State and turn toward a praetorian society? You torture people into alleging it. Global terrorism is being exaggerated and hyped by torture just as the witchcraft scare in Puritan American manufactured witches.” Cole explains that “Bush needs torture … to generate false information that exaggerates the threat to his regime, so as to justify repression. He needs the ritual of confession and naming others, to have it down on paper so he can show it to Congress behind closed doors.”

The Defense Intelligence Agency study did not examine this “benefit” of torture.

Comments & cavils on this topic are welcome at my blog here.

The real issue in Bush’s speech Wednesday night is not the additional troops he intends to send to Iraq.  The real issue is his nearly open proclamation of  dictatorial powers.

Apparently, once a president lies a nation into war, he is entitled to absolute power for as long as he chooses.  Regardless of how many Americans die or how many hundreds of thousands of foreigners are killed, the president’s prerogatives are sacred, at least as long as he recites the proper phrases regarding the spread of freedom and democracy.  American voters made their will on Iraq clear at the polling booth last November.  But they, like the Constitution and the federal statute book, don’t matter.

We have already heard from Bush or his lackeys about how the president is entitled to violate laws regarding wiretaps, renditions, torture, mail privacy, etc.  The latest “surge” is just another example of how Bush rules by decree.

Will Bush, like other aspiring dictators, be able to cow opposition long enough to consolidate the powers he has seized?

And if the term dictator is offensive – then what is a better term for a politician who claims to be bound by no law or Constitution?

Comments/condemnations on this blog are welcome at my blog here.

Seeing the rave reviews on how Iraqis will benefit from the hanging of Saddam Hussein, and hearing the late Gerald Ford lauded today to the heavens, I can’t help wondering how American history might have changed if Richard Nixon had been hanged.

Of course, I’m not suggesting  Nixon should have been hanged by a lynch mob.  And it is possible that Nixon could have been given a Saddam-like trial (judged fair enough by the Washington Post and most of the American establishment) and somehow avoided stretching before a crowd.

Nixon was guilty of illegally invading a foreign country (Cambodia), of perpetuating the war in Vietnam for political purposes and his 1972 reelection campaign, of violating the rights of tens of thousands of Americans with the illegal FBI COINTELPRO program, of sanctioning CIA violence and subversion around the globe, as well as Watergate and many other offenses.

Nixon also created Amtrak.

Many people assume that President Ford pardoned Nixon only for Watergate.  Instead, Ford pardoned Nixon for any and every crime Nixon committed from January 20, 1969 (the date he was sworn in) until the day he resigned in August 1974.    Ford’s pardon effectively closed the book on holding Nixon culpable for his crimes against the Constitution, Americans, and millions of other people around the world.

If Nixon had been publicly tried and a full accounting of his abuses made to the American public, it may have been far more difficult for subsequent presidents to cover up their crimes.  If politicians had vivid memories of Nixon swinging on a rope, they might have been slower to lie the nation into unnecessary foreign wars.    If Ford was hellbent on pardoning his friend, he should have had the decency to wait until the evidence was on the table.  

Some people would say that it would have been unfair to make Nixon pay the price for his lies and crimes when other presidents (such as Lyndon Johnson) got away with similar abuses and mass killings.

True enough, but it is necessary to start somewhere.

And those who are concerned about how Nixon would have personally suffered from being hanged are cold-hearted towards the tens of thousands of Americans who have been killed and maimed in subsequent unnecessary wars.  Making one politician pay the price of his conduct could have saved Americans and the world vast suffering.

Comments on this topic are welcome at my blog here.

 

Dilbert today is worth triple its weight in Harvard political philosophers. Scott Adams is no boot-burnisher.

This cartoon cuts to the heart of the fraud of contemporary democracy.

I am amused to hear talk of politicians having mandates when voters had a choice of squirrel abusers or secretary stranglers. 

Amazing that there is far more truth on the comics page than on the editorial pages in this country. The cartoonists do not waste time genuflecting to the Official Lies, and they do not stay confined within the boundaries of respectable commentary.

Comments, caterwaulings & outbursts of idealism welcome at my blog here.

The New York Times has a great piece today on sham justice in Iraq.  The US military now holds almost twice as many Iraqi detainees as it did when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke.  The U.S. set up a Central Criminal Court in Baghdad that usually has a Soviet-like disregard for due process.  The system reduces paperwork burdens by routinely excluding defense lawyers. The Times noted, “ One American lawyer said that in 100 cases he handled, not one defense lawyer had introduced evidence or witnesses.”  The U.S. military is heavily involved in prosecutions – but even when an Iraqi judge finds a defendant not guilty, the U.S. sometimes refuses to release him.

What is the standard used for holding Iraqis (for as long as two years)?

The Times noted:
The military conducts reviews in the camps to screen detainees for release. Many have been swept up at the scene of bombings or other violence, and the detention camp boards have recommended releasing as many as 60 percent of the detainees whose cases they reviewed.
Officials have sought to tighten the evidentiary standards used in deciding whether to detain suspects. Last year, for example, Maj. Gen. William H. Brandenburg, then the task force commander, became concerned about a swipe test that soldiers used on suspects to detect gunpowder. The test was so unreliable that cigarette lighter residue and even a common hand lotion would register as gunpowder.

The Iraqi courts are sentencing people to hanging based on often flimsy evidence. Iraqi courts have relied on tortured confessions in some cases.

Remember how Bush brags about having brought the “Rule of Law” to Iraq? Remember that Bush also brags about the “Rule of Law” in America. 

Rather than bringing American-style justice to Iraq, Bush is more likely to bring Iraqi-style justice to America.   The Military Commissions Act is a harbinger of things to come.

Comments on this entry are welcome at my blog here.

 

I have posted online the full text of my American Conservative article (12/18 issue) on Bush’s dictatorial powers and torture abuses.   Bush apparently secretly authorized harsh interrogation methods that may have amounted to torture.  If this Bush secret letter on interrogation hits the streets, its impact may be akin to a 1972 memo from Richard Nixon specifying the exact methods of lock-picking the Watergate burglars should use. Bush’s involvement in the torture scandal may be far deeper than Nixon’s involvement in Watergate. 

Comments & caterwaulings welcome at my blog here