The Corruption That Is Torture

The Spanish national security court has opened a criminal probe of Bush torture lawyers.

The Wheels Of Justice

ANDREW SULLIVAN, THE DAILY DISH 28 Mar 2009 

In a very serious development in the attempt to bring former Bush officials to justice for committing war crimes, we find this out today:

Spain's national newspapers, El País and Público reported that the Spanish national security court has opened a criminal probe focusing on Bush Administration lawyers who pioneered the descent into torture at the prison in Guantánamo. The criminal complaint can be examined here. Público identifies the targets as University of California law professor John Yoo, former Department of Defense general counsel William J. Haynes II (now a lawyer working for Chevron), former vice presidential chief-of-staff David Addington, former attorney general and White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, now a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and former Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith.

More ominous for Yoo and Addington et al is that the judge involved is the one who nailed Pinochet. That dude doesn't mess around. Spain's action means these war criminals are vulnerable in 24 European countries for arrest and prosecution for enabling torture. It's a start.

(Photo: David Addington by Melissa Golden/Getty.)

MORE here

U.K. To Investigate Its Role in U.S. Torture Policies

By DAPHNE EVIATAR The Washington Independent 3/26/09 

  Do the Secret Bush Memos Amount to Treason? Top Constitutional Scholar Says Yes

By Naomi Wolf, AlterNet. Posted March 25, 2009.

Guantanamo inmates in new legal fight

Published: Monday March 23, 2009

Lawyers have filed two court challenges against the Obama administration's treatment of Guantanamo detainees and its future plans for the men, most of whom have been held for years without trial.

One motion obtained by AFP on Monday was filed on behalf of Chinese Uighur, Huzaifat Parhat. He was among 17 Uighur ordered released by a US court in June seven years after their arrest, but who remain in detention at the remote US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, southern Cuba.

The lawyers filed a motion of contempt against Secretary of Defense Robert Gates denouncing his "continued refusal to comply with a final order" by a Washington appeals court to release Parhat, the document said.

The lawyers also demanded that a new court ruling should include "a threat of sanctions" in order to ensure Gates complies with the order to release Parhat.

The other lawsuit filed by about 15 inmates takes issue with new rules laid down by the administration of US President Barack Obama earlier this month justifying the state's right to hold terror suspects.

On March 13, the Justice Department said it was dropping the "enemy combatant" designation for terror suspects and vowed to apply international law to its detention policies. It said only those who "substantially supported" the Al-Qaeda network, Taliban Islamic militants or "associated forces" would be held under such laws.

But the detainees' lawyers downplayed the new policy as only a "partial retreat" from the positions held under the previous administration of former president George W. Bush.

"The conceptual approach they now advance has not greatly changed," they argued in the court filing.

They also lashed out at the government for justifying detaining suspects without charge or trial solely on the basis of a congressional decision authorizing the US-led "war on terror" after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The political decision to hold suspects indefinitely without charge because they are deemed too dangerous to be free is a policy choice that under the US Constitution "must be resolved by Congress, not by the executive branch," they wrote.

On Friday, lawyers for 30 detainees filed a motion accusing the Obama administration of violating the Geneva Conventions in its treatment of the estimated 240 prisoners remaining at the controversial prison camp.

Obama has vowed to close the camp within the next 12 months, and has ordered individual reviews of the cases against each of the remaining prisoners.

 

The definition of torture

UNLV colleagues of man who advised Bush on interrogation techniques agonize as they try to reconcile that work with the legal scholar they knew

By J. Patrick Coolican  The Las Vegas Sun   Mar 22, 2009

Jay S. Bybee is described as a gentle soul. His legal scholarship was considered rigorous and his positions well reasoned and, though conservative, not dogmatic.

Even as he moved up easily through the elite echelons of government and academe, Bybee remained true to his nature, generous and kind.

So how could Bybee, now a judge on the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, sign his name to a legal document that seemed to sanction the use of torture?

This is the question now facing Bybee's colleagues at UNLV's Boyd School of Law, where he remains a tenured professor, and others who have worked with him. How he answers that question, if he ever decides to, will decide his legacy, those colleagues say.

The Woes of a Torture Lawyer

By Scott Horton HARPER'S MAGAZINE, March 21, 2009 

The San Jose Mercury-News carries a story about the possibility that John Yoo may be disciplined or fired by the University of California at Berkeley:

UC Berkeley leaders are wrestling with that decision as a federal investigation into John Yoo's legal advice to the Bush Administration apparently winds down.

The dilemma is rare. At risk are the tenets of academic freedom that have long allowed college faculty members to speak their minds in the name of scholarship. Yoo's case revolves around his advice on dealing with accused terrorists, including a notorious memo that provides legal justification for torture. Yoo, who is temporarily teaching at Orange County's Chapman University, has long attracted protests on his home campus, but some surprising allies have come to his defense.

"I think this is simply a left-wing version of McCarthyism," said Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard Law School professor who disagrees strongly with Yoo's views on torture. "He should be judged solely on the merits of his academics."

But Berkeley administrators and faculty leaders said they would be concerned about Yoo teaching law students if he were found to have violated ethical or legal standards. Critics have called Yoo a yes-man for President George W. Bush, essentially telling him what he wanted to hear.

Update : OAS panel receptive to rights groups

Rights Groups To Call for Prosecutions of Bush Officials Before International Commission

By DAPHNE EVIATAR  The Washington Independent 3/20/09

The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a secret report two years ago that the Bush administration's treatment of prisoners "constituted torture" in violation of the Geneva Conventions. The findings were based on interviews with prisoners once held in the CIA's secret black sites.

The revelation was made this weekend when the author and journalist Mark Danner published extensive excerpts of the Red Cross report in the New York Review of Books. In the article, Danner quotes from a speech President Bush delivered from the White House on September 6th, 2006. Danner writes the speech is "perhaps the only historic speech [Bush] ever gave." In it, Bush admitted the US was using what he called "an alternative set of procedures" to interrogate terrorism suspects.

Yesterday I spoke with Mark Danner about the secret Red Cross report he obtained and what it reveals about the Bush administration"s treatment of prisoners. Danner is a contributor to The New York Review of Books and is a Professor of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of "Torture and Truth."

Mark Danner, contributor to the New York Review of Books. He is a professor of journalism at the University of California at Berkeley and a professor of human rights and journalism at Bard College. He is the author of Torture and Truth.

'Torture Memos' vs. Academic Freedom

A review of a Berkeley law professor's memos to the White House about counterterrorism policies prompts calls for his job

By DAVID GLENN The Chronicle of Higher Education From the issue dated March 20, 2009 

When people gathered last May for the commencement ceremony at the University of California at Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, they were greeted by chanting activists from the National Lawyers Guild and other left-wing groups.

The university, protesters shouted, should fire John C. Yoo, a tenured professor who has taught at the law school since 1993. While on leave at the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel between 2001 and 2003, Mr. Yoo drafted what have come to be known as the "torture memos" -- a series of secret memoranda that gave benediction to President George W. Bush's interrogation and surveillance policies.

Some scholars believe that Mr. Yoo's memoranda were so shoddy that they amounted to professional misconduct. Several of those critics also think that Mr. Yoo's academic job should be in jeopardy. But others -- including some who agree that Mr. Yoo's memoranda were pernicious -- argue that penalizing Mr. Yoo for his work in Washington could set a troubling precedent for academic freedom.

Now the debate over Mr. Yoo's presence at Berkeley has taken on new urgency. At the beginning of March, the government released several previously undisclosed memoranda by Mr. Yoo. And the Justice Department will soon complete a review of his conduct. According to a Newsweek report, the department might allege that Mr. Yoo improperly colluded with the White House to craft justifications for dubious counterterrorist policies. It could be the credible charge of misconduct that critics have been waiting for.

A Higher Standard

At the center of the storm sits Christopher Edley Jr., dean of Boalt Hall, who is fielding anxious phone calls from faculty members and students.

"The analogy on everyone's mind here is the McCarthy era, when professors were harassed and sometimes prosecuted for their outside political endeavors," Mr. Edley says. "That explains the attractiveness of a bright-line rule that requires an actual criminal conviction before a professor can be disciplined for outside work."

But Mr. Edley also says that a higher standard should apply to law professors and other instructors in professional schools. In those fields, Mr. Edley says, the university should investigate credible allegations of serious off-campus professional misconduct, even if a criminal conviction is nowhere in sight.

"Law professors, after all, are charged with preparing the next generation of professionals to live their lives according to our ethical canons," he says.

If the Justice Department's review includes serious allegations, Mr. Edley says, the university might be justified in formally reviewing Mr. Yoo's extracurricular activities. Such a move very likely would be triggered by the universitywide Academic Senate; the dean cannot initiate it. Mr. Edley emphasizes that he is speaking hypothetically, and he says that any punishment need not necessarily include revocation of tenure. The university's rules allow far milder sanctions, including written censure and a reduction in salary.

16 Mar 2009 01:38 pm

Compare And Contrast

Andrew Sullivan THE DAILY DISH The Atlantic

From the Red Cross's summary of Bush-Cheney torture techniques:

Contents
Introduction
1. Main Elements of the CIA Detention Program  
1.1 Arrest and Transfer
1.2 Continuous Solitary Confinement and Incommunicado Detention
1.3 Other Methods of Ill-treatment
1.3.1 Suffocation by water
1.3.2 Prolonged Stress Standing
1.3.3 Beatings by use of a collar
1.3.4 Beating and kicking
1.3.5 Confinement in a box
1.3.6 Prolonged nudity
1.3.7 Sleep deprivation and use of loud music
1.3.8 Exposure to cold temperature/cold water
1.3.9 Prolonged use of handcuffs and shackles
1.3.10 Threats
1.3.11 Forced shaving
1.3.12 Deprivation/restricted provision of solid food
1.4 Further elements of the detention regime...

The Gestapo's list of torture techniques that fit into their "enhanced interrogation program" - a torture regime designed to avoid too-obvious or incriminating physical scars:

 
Bush and Cheney were, in fact, more brutal in their "enhanced interrogation" than the Gestapo was. And note that I am not engaging in the slightest hyperbole here. I'm not saying that the US is Nazi Germany in any way. I am saying that the torture program used by Bush and Cheney follows exactly the specific methods used by the Gestapo. This is not in any historical dispute, although the irony of using the exact same phrase for the exact same methods is one reason the Bushies dropped the term.

We also have a very specific legal precedent. When the US captured officials who had done to prisoners exactly what the last president did, the US prosecuted them, found them guilty andexecuted them. The price Cheney pays is a fawning interview on CNN.

That's who we are. That's what we've become.

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NLGSF Files Complaint With California State Bar Against William Haynes

Former Department of Defense General Counsel Recommended Torture, Harsh Interrogation Techniques

San Francisco - The National Lawyers Guild San Francisco Bay Area Chapter (NLGSF) is filing a complaintwith the California State Bar today against former Department of Defense General Counsel William Haynes. The complaint against Haynes, who now works for the Chevron Corporation in San Ramon, states that he "breached his duty as a lawyer and advocated for harsh tactics amounting to torture in violation of U.S. and international law ... advocacy that directly lead to detainee abuses at the Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib facilities."

Read more »

In Torture Cases, Obama Toes Bush Line

Legal Stance Appears to Contradict Earlier Statements From Obama and Holder

By DAPHNE EVIATAR 3/16/09 3:02 PM

Donald Rumsfeld (WDCpix) and John Yoo (Wikimedia)

While Congress debates whether senior Bush administration officials should be called to account for the torture, humiliation and indefinite detention of prisoners taken during the "war on terror," some of those prisoners aren't waiting around for lawmakers to make up their minds. A growing number of private lawsuits brought by former detainees against former Bush officials are slowly making their way through the courts. And to the dismay of some of its strongest supporters, the Obama administration has, in every case so far, taken the side of the Bush administration, arguing that these cases should all be dismissed.

The Evil that John Yoo Wrought

The East Bay Express March 16, 2009

Edge of dictatorship

Obama Justice Department Urges Dismissal of Another Torture Case

By DAPHNE EVIATAR 3/12/09 THE WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT

John Yoo: UC Berkeley Is a "Magnet for Hippies, Protesters and Left-Wing Activists"

Thursday 12 March 2009

Protesters and police in Berkeley, California. John Yoo, who served as deputy assistant attorney general in the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) under Bush and wrote several controversial legal memos on torture and executive power, dismissed his critics at UC Berkeley as "hippies, protesters and left-wing activists." (Photo: Jeff Chiu / AP)

is currently the subject of a federal investigation by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility concerning a legal memorandum he authorized while serving in the Office of Legal Counsel.

Impeach Bybee

Why Is the Obama Administration Defending John Yoo?

By DAPHNE EVIATAR 3/10/09 THE WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT

"John Yoo is sorry for nothing"

Judge Weighs Dismissing Case Involving Torture Memorandums

Melissa Golden/Getty Images

John C. Yoo, flanked by David S. Addington and Chris Schroeder, testified before the House Judiciary Committee in June 2008.

By JOHN SCHWARTZ,

 

Obama's mixed signals on terror policy

The White House is seeking to protect at least some of its Bush-era privileges.

from the March 6, 2009 edition 

Reporter Warren Richey discusses how President Obama is rejecting some of Bush's policies on detained terror suspects but embracing others.

WASHINGTON - Lawyers with the Obama administration are working to prevent full judicial review of one of the most controversial aspects of President Bush's war on terror - his claim of authority to hold US citizens and legal residents in indefinite military detention without charge as enemy combatants.

On Friday, the Supreme Court justices will meet to consider a motion by the Obama administration to dismiss a petition that raises the issue. On the same day, Justice Department lawyers will urge a federal judge in San Francisco to throw out a civil lawsuit that seeks judicial scrutiny of the work of John Yoo, a former Bush administration adviser who helped draft memos that laid the legal groundwork for President Bush's counterterrorism approach.

In recent weeks, President Obama has rejected some Bush policies in the war on terror while embracing others. His position on executive power in antiterror efforts remain ill-defined.

Rice engages critics

MASARU OKA/The Stanford Daily

Condoleezza Rice was in her Hoover office yesterday after her official return on March 2. Rice's office was already set up with sports memorabilia, pictures with world leaders, a model of the USS Condoleezza Rice, and other memorable objects from her time in office as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State for the Bush administration.

    

Daily Exclusive Interview

Condoleezza Rice officially returned to Stanford just this week, but the political science professor already appears at home in her Hoover Institution office. Her shelves are neatly organized, displaying autographed footballs, photos of Rice with world leaders and even a model of the USS Condoleezza Rice.

The former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor is confident that she will have a smooth transition back to the Farm. In an exclusive interview with The Daily yesterday, Rice displayed poise and composure, and she dismissed student concerns about the Bush administration's authorization of harsh interrogation methods.

Watch Keith Olbermann's interview of Scott Horton on MSNBC's Countdown, courtesy of rawstory.com.

John Yoo Hearts Orange County

By Scott Horton, HARPER'S MAGAZINE 

Just as the publication of another batch of his memos--repudiated by the Bush Justice Department just as it was handing the keys over to its successor--is causing quite a stir in legal circles, John Yoo appears in an interview in the Orange County Register.

John Yoo Should Be Disbarred, continued

EAST BAY EXPRESS

Newly released secret memos of the Bush Administration include more evidence that notorious Berkeley law professor John Yoo should be disbarred. Two of the memos, written in January by Bush appointee, Steven Bradbury, a successor of Yoo's in the Justice Department, strongly repudiate Yoo's work. It was the second known repudiation of Yoo by a conservative legal scholar within Bush administration.