I see from Memorandum that the only people writing about this at the moment are on the left. I sincerely hope that changes because this is a very important story and I would hate to think that a sense of partisanship would intrude on what is a probable violation of the law.
There may be good reason to destroy DVD’s of interrogations. But not when they have probative value in a potential court case nor when they are destroyed to cover up wrong doing by employees of the government:
The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Al Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about the C.I.A’s secret detention program, according to current and former government officials.The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terror suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in C.I.A. custody — to severe interrogation techniques. They were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that tapes documenting controversial interrogation methods could expose agency officials to greater risk of legal jeopardy, several officials said.
The C.I.A. said today that the decision to destroy the tapes had been made “within the C.I.A. itself,†and they were destroyed to protect the safety of undercover officers and because they no longer had intelligence value. The agency was headed at the time by Porter J. Goss. Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Goss declined this afternoon to comment on the destruction of the tapes.
This is bad enough. But what makes this a budding scandal for the CIA is that both the 9/11 Commission and attorneys for Zacarias Moussaoui specifically requested such evidence and the CIA denied they had it:
The recordings were not provided to a federal court hearing the case of the terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui or to the Sept. 11 commission, which had made formal requests to the C.I.A. for transcripts and any other documentary evidence taken from interrogations of agency prisoners.C.I.A. lawyers told federal prosecutors in 2003 and 2005, who relayed the information to a federal court in the Moussaoui case, that the C.I.A. did not possess recordings of interrogations sought by the judge in the case. It was unclear whether the judge had explicitly sought the videotape depicting the interrogation of Mr. Zubaydah.
Granted the judge may not have asked for the specific tapes nor did the 9/11 Commission request anything specific. But if the CIA is going to hang its hat on that defense, damn them. Their failure to turn over potential exculpatory evidence may open an avenue of appeal for Zacarias Moussaoui to at least grant him a new trial. And they impeded the 9/11 investigation by failing to fully cooperate with the Commission’s requests for information.
It is against American law to torture prisoners – even terrorists. And American law’s definition of torture mirrors that of the definition given by the Geneva Convention. The Geneva Convention prohibits the kind of “severe interrogation techniques” that were used on Zubaydah. It’s not a question of whether waterboarding isn’t really “torture” because our special forces guys go through it as part of their training. Or other “stress techniques” aren’t really torture because they leave no marks or don’t really distress the prisoner. The law is the law and these special interrogation techniques are in violation of the Geneva Convention and hence, American law.
If one plus one still equals two, that would mean that the officials who were concerned that the tapes “could expose agency officials to greater risk of legal jeopardy” and went ahead and destroyed them anyway are up for obstruction charges.
We can argue – and I have in the past on this site – that the Geneva Convention is ridiculously out of date, moldy in its thinking and laughably naive about men at war and the exigencies of the times. And the fact that we and other western countries are the only ones who even make an attempt to conduct ourselves by its rules is patently unfair and revealing of a sickening double standard abroad in the world.
But until and unless it is amended, those officials who authorized the interrogations and who carried them out could be in violation of the law and subject to prosecution. Destroying the tapes therefore is destroying potential evidence in a criminal trial.
I don’t write much about the torture issue anymore because it sickens me to have my friends on the right trying to excuse it and it nauseates me when the left moralizes about it. It is wrong and will come back to haunt us. Not because, as some argue, that it puts our own soldiers in danger. That argument flies in the face of history. We have never fought a war where the enemy we were fighting followed the Geneva Convention. In fact, most of the enemies we have fought have been flagrant violators of human decency in their treatment of prisoners much less paying any attention to the strictures in the GC.
We should not torture because of who we are not because of what the Geneva Convention says, or the left says, or the hypocritical third world moralists say. It is wrong for Americans to do it. And yes, waterboarding is torture. Putting a prisoner in stress positions is torture. Sleep deprivation is torture.
Forget the hysterics from our political opponents and examine the issue not as a partisan but as question of simple human decency. If we Americans have lost that – if we’ve forgotten that we hold ourselves to a higher standard than the brutes we are fighting and their allies in the hypocritical third world, then we will have lost a very important component of what makes us an exceptional nation.
I don’t know if we have the courage to face this issue and bring the violators to some kind of justice. I totally reject the idea of allowing any kind of foreign tribunal to judge Americans for the simple reason I wouldn’t trust them to be fair and objective, anti-Americanism being a dominant ideology in much of the world where the efficacy of such tribunals is acknowledged. And facing the music on torture opens a chasm beneath our feet in that the techniques used on these prisoners were approved at the highest levels of the American government. The idea that these officials will walk away scott free is troubling. But if you put Bush on trial, what does that do as far as limiting the options of his successors? And is it the kind of precedent we really want to set?
I don’t know the answers to those questions. And those on the left, blinded by their unreasoning hatred of this president, are not the ones to judge the best course of action. But there clearly must be some kind of accounting for what has been done in our name. How that plays out will say a lot about us as a nation that purports to stand for the best in humanity and not the worst.
UPDATE
More from the Times here.
And The Blotter is reporting that DCIA Hayden issued a statement to CIA employees before the Times article broke, giving a rather disingenuous reason for the destruction of the tapes:
CIA Director Mike Hayden sent a message to CIA employees today saying “the press has learned” that the CIA videotaped interrogations in 2002 and that the tapes were subsequently destroyed in 2005. The decision to destroy the tapes was made by the CIA, but he says the leaders of the congressional intelligence committees knew about the tapes and the decision to destroy them.Hayden offers an explanation for why the tapes were destroyed—“no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative, or judicial inquiries” and offers another defense of the interrogation techniques used by the CIA.
John Sifton, a human rights attorney who is active in cases involving the CIA’s secret prison program, said today that the destruction of the tapes is a scandal.
“This is a major piece of the mosaic of evidence, and now it’s gone,” said Sifton. “They should be ashamed of themselves.”
If the CIA didn’t have a history of stiffing Congressional Committees, judicial proceedings, and special tribunals like the Warren Commission, we might be more inclined to believe General Hayden.
But it is ridiculous for Hayden to say that the decision to destroy them was made in a political vacuum. As the Times article points out, the tapes were destroyed at the height of Congressional interest in the CIA’s interrogation techniques. To then go ahead and destroy a tape that may have been instructive of how the CIA carried out interrogations would seem to infer cover-up rather than some kind of standard operating procedure.
That is, unless you trust what Hayden and others are saying about the subject. And frankly, they lost the right to get the benefit of the doubt long ago.
UPDATE: 12/7:
Jamses Joyner also sees obstruction of justice as a problem for those who ordered the tapes destroyed. He also points out that there was Congressional oversight of a sort in that the Chairmen and Vice Chairs of the House and Senate Intel Committees were informed of the plan to destroy the tapes. (No mention of informing the Speaker and Minority Leader in the House and the Majority/Minority Leader in the Senate which would also be the custom in these cases of limited notification.)
James pretty much takes Hayden at his word as far as why the tapes were destroyed but points out the discrepancies in his explanation. Any way you slice it, someone needs to be held accountable for the tape’s destruction.
11:34 pm
The issue here is partly semantics. Severe Interrogation now somehow is being used as an equal for Torture.
It is likely they are not factually equal unless and until proven otherwise , that is why the term is used to differ it from torture.
11:48 pm
Even the NYT article does not use the word torture.
Any one who says other than severe interrogation is seemingly making a jump of conclusion.
The current director states what methods were used are within the law and as you point out the law does not allow torture.
So this and review by the Intel committees probably would mean that torture was not used.
11:54 pm
This would indicate they used techniques that could be construed as illegal:
They were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that tapes documenting controversial interrogation methods could expose agency officials to greater risk of legal jeopardy, several officials said.
12:07 am
What I am trying to say is this is still a potential issue of different word parsing.
The tapes were reviewed before destruction and declared legal and the current director reviewed the history and evaluated it to be the same.
Also some of the methods used then were not illegal at the time possibly but may have later been subject to more restrictive law, which would make them illegal, but you can’t make the new law retroactive.
Legal jeopardy only implies that they may have had defense of their actions if the tapes were revealed, not necessarily supporting the conclusion that guilt would be the outcome. Just that they might have legal issues to defend until being acquitted.
12:12 am
Another possibility is that the procedures were totally legal by our laws but possibly might have been beyond the limits of the host country where the interrogation was done.
We do not simply have enough data of the specifics to fully define the issue.
12:46 am
It seems to me that destroying the tapes that were to be used in any legal proceedings should get them in trouble, aside from the discussion about what constitutes torture and the acceptability of it.
Of course the news will get the issue swirling in high gear again as it was during the Mukasey confirmation hearings. Perhaps it’s necessary to determine exactly which forms of interrogation techniques are not torture. What kinds don’t involve some degree of discomfort or stress?
12:59 am
Ooops. I don’t want my comment to be give the impression I believe all uncomfortable or stressful interrogation techniques are torture (it’s late). But there appears to be a gray area without a clear cut line. I suppose it depends simply on what the legal definition is and which particular techniques are in or out of favor.
1:17 am
“We can argue – and I have in the past on this site – that the Geneva Convention is ridiculously out of date, moldy in its thinking and laughably naive about men at war and the exigencies of the times.”
Utter bullshit. And there is no confusion or gray area about the reported techniques BUSH has sanctioned. They are TORTURE plain and simple and you are a torture apologist with the above “smarmy” posting. If you want to know what torture is ask John McCain.
1:22 am
It is against American law to torture prisoners – even terrorists. And American law’s definition of torture mirrors that of the definition given by the Geneva Convention. The Geneva Convention prohibits the kind of “severe interrogation techniques†that were used on Zubaydah. It’s not a question of whether waterboarding isn’t really “torture†because our special forces guys go through it as part of their training. Or other “stress techniques†aren’t really torture because they leave no marks or don’t really distress the prisoner. The law is the law and these special interrogation techniques are in violation of the Geneva Convention and hence, American law.
Are you only mildly retarded or, as I suspect, a full blown drooling, spasming idiot?
Where do I say there is “confusion or a gray area” about torture?
You just can’t take “yes” for an answer. Or does the prospect of a conservative agreeing with you cause your tiny brain to explode?
1:28 am
Rick, I think nightjar was referring to me, but I didn’t mean my post to be taken that way. I wasn’t talking about any techniques that may or may not have been used by the CIA. My post was about the concept in general.
1:31 am
Rick, supra:
Well, it might indicate that. And it might indicate that in a country where we’ve criminalized our policy differences—for more, see Libby, Scooter—agency officials feared a kangaroo prosecution on politically-motivated charges.
You yourself classify these tapes as “torture tapes,” even though you have not seen them and do not know what, if anything, they show. You then proceed to describe the unknown as “a probable violation of the law.” And yet you would apparently have us believe that only the guilty can fear “legal jeopardy.”
1:34 am
The law is the law and these special interrogation techniques are in violation of the Geneva Convention and hence, American law.
Let me just say I agree with that and then go to bed.
1:43 am
“I don’t write much about the torture issue anymore because it sickens me to have my friends on the right trying to excuse it and it nauseates me when the left moralizes about it”
You make an asinine statement like this and you accuse me of being retarded. Here’s a question, if we on the left don’t “moralize” about it then who the hell is? This isn’t the dilemma you try to make it. The people who authorized this need to be held to account and in this country we do that with our legal system. The comment by newshogger, you blasted with your first post, is completely valid. The rights callous dismissal of V Plame being outed is sickening.
1:56 am
But I can’t go to sleep until I know what I said that got my post the ‘smarmy’ label.
2:47 am
[...] And obstruction of justice? No big deal. Excepting of course: “attorneys for Zacarias Moussaoui specifically requested such evidence and the CIA denied they had it.“ [...]
3:35 am
“There may be good reason to destroy DVD’s of interrogations.”
Rick, please inform us when it’s a good idea to destroy DVD’s.
3:39 am
“We can argue – and I have in the past on this site – that the Geneva Convention is ridiculously out of date, moldy in its thinking and laughably naive about men at war and the exigencies of the times.”
can you please provide a link to your own writing on this issue? I am a latecomer. How about a link to the Geneva Convention?
8:16 am
Safety of the families and CIA employees easily trumps whatever whiny reasoning the anti military pro terrorist left has for having the tapes. We all know the first thing they would do is splash them all over the web and network TV.
8:20 am
Look at this blubbering. The jihadis would fry us all alive if they could, they don’t give a crap whether we thin we occupy a “moral high ground.”
8:25 am
“We can argue – and I have in the past on this site – that the Geneva Convention is ridiculously out of date, moldy in its thinking and laughably naive about men at war and the exigencies of the times.â€
Utter bullshit. And there is no confusion or gray area about the reported techniques BUSH has sanctioned. They are TORTURE plain and simple and you are a torture apologist with the above “smarmy†posting. If you want to know what torture is ask John McCain.
*******************************************************
Only a fool would equate the treatmenr of McCain in VN to anything that has happened to the animals in our custody. SAside from a few photos of humiliating treatment at Abu Grhab (sp) for the soldiers responsible were jailed, you left wing terrorist sympathisers/Bush haters have nothing to prove your contention we torture anyone. It’s laughable that you consider water boarding, an interrogation method used ON OUR OWN SOLDIERS during their for SF and Pilot training as torture.
Each day we see the true colors of the liberals in this country as they try to undercut the troops by denying funding or give aid and comfort to the enemy by their constant rhetoric of how we have lsot the war and the surge is a failure, all despite obvious and stunning successes over the past 2 months.
The Democrats, 100% invested in Americas defeat in Iraq as they were in Vietnam are pushing the panic button HARD and will stop at nothing to defeat America in her WOT.
8:29 am
Mr Moran—”the torture tapes”? my, my aren’t we jumping to conclusions! Can you possibly be more santimonious and self righteous? I expect this moral preening from the disingenuous among us but you truly disappoint me. Did you recently get a job at the NYTimes? And please, sleep deprivation and snoop dogg at 500 decibels are not torture. As for water boarding, like most common sense Americans i see no need to apologize for its judicious use while interrogating the worst of the worst.
Torture is choosing between being burned alive or jumping from the 100th floor. Torture is being on your knees having your head sawed off by filth. Torture is being herded into a mass grave. Torture is listening to this sanctimonious bleating while the filth you shed tears for are laughing. Useful idiots….they’re everywhere.
9:14 am
[...] So, how bad is it? The Left is going bananas–with one its most unhinged bloggers now dubbing America a “Banana Republic.” It is bad. Center and right-leaning bloggers are weighing in. James Joyner points out that “People have gone to jail for obstruction of justice for actions much, much less brazen than this.” Ed Morrissey believes the tape destruction “looks a lot more like destroying evidence than tightening security.” Rick Moran concludes “Any way you slice it, someone needs to be held accountable for the tape’s destruction.” [...]
9:17 am
As a big fat librul, I am thankful that you bring this important issue to everyone’s attention. Goverment agencies that break the law should not be a partisan issue. I am happy to join a fellow American in this opinion. Thanks.
9:32 am
And, thanks to the active complicity of Democrats such as Jay Rockefeller, “Independents” such as Joe Lieberman and the entire Republican Party, the Administration is getting away with it.
9:41 am
Re: “get the hysterics from our political opponents and examine the issue not as a partisan but as question of simple human decency. If we Americans have lost that – if we’ve forgotten that we hold ourselves to a higher standard than the brutes we are fighting and their allies in the hypocritical third world, then we will have lost a very important component of what makes us an exceptional nation.”
Long gone.
Unfortunately virtually everyone on the political Right now believes the TV series “24” is fact, not fiction, even quoting lines of dialogue in their commentary.
Republican Presidential candidates are vieing to see qho can endorse better torture on behalf of their cause.
And, thanks tothe complicity of Democrats such as Jay Rockefeller and Joe Lieberman (now an Independent), the Bush Administration is going to get away with it.
America now officially stands for tortuting its prisoners. The only way we are “better” than those who oppose us is that we “our torturing is not as bad as their torturing” (as least to the extent of the torturing we know about right now).
Isn’t that a wonderful thing for America to represent to the world?
9:51 am
Rick,
Why do you defend the Shadow Warriors? The leakers of the story are playing you for a fool. It’s their made-up story-line about “legal concerns” that you and the left buy hook, line & sinker. Do you really believe that in 2005 Democrats would have sanctioned such actions if there was even the slightest hint of illegality?
9:54 am
Impressive post, Mr. Moran. I respect it must hsve been difficult to post, knowing the consequences in terms of the flak you would receive, but attempting to do the right thing in the face of negative repurcussions alwyas earns a golf clap from me.
10:50 am
“We should not torture because of who we are not because of what the Geneva Convention says, or the left says, or the hypocritical third world moralists say. It is wrong for Americans to do it. And yes, waterboarding is torture. Putting a prisoner in stress positions is torture. Sleep deprivation is torture.”
With all due respect, this is the basic position of almost everyone on the left that I have spoken to, a simple moral absolute that torture is always wrong no matter what the situation. Bring on the situational ethics say the Pro-Torture crowd.
It helps if you regard the whole thing as a very, very black comedy.
10:54 am
[...] Personally I couldn’t care less about the use of ‘harsh interrogation tactics’. Perhaps this is one of the reasons we conservatives are often stereotyped as old testament brutes, but it is the truth. I’ve seen condemnations sporatically lighting our side of the blogosphere, and all I can do is shake my head. For example, Rick Moran over at RWNH is livid. Don’t get me wrong, RWNH is a hell of a site, but this excerpt made me almost lose my morning coffee: We should not torture because of who we are not because of what the Geneva Convention says, or the left says, or the hypocritical third world moralists say. It is wrong for Americans to do it. And yes, waterboarding is torture. Putting a prisoner in stress positions is torture. Sleep deprivation is torture. [...]
10:54 am
“Rightwing Nuthouse” indeed.
Good post, Mr. Moran. You deserve better commenters.
11:01 am
You did a good thing, Mr Moran. America should be proud of you for writing about this. You’re gonna get some hell for it, you already have, but you did the right thing.
11:08 am
We Can’t Go To The Video Tape…
I’m with Ed, James, and Rick on this – not only does someone need to be held accountable, but it would appear that this was the destruction of evidence, and not simply tightening security to ensure that the identities of those CIA involved in the int….
11:22 am
Saw your comment on Newshoggers:
The gratuitous and dismissive way you approach the possibility that al-Qaeda indeed might want to kill the people on those tapes is outrageous.
It was dumb.
It was dumb for the fake assumption that Al-Quieda wants to kill CIA agents in videotapes more than it wants to kill random CIA agents, when it would kill either one happily given the opportunity, which it does not have.
It was dumb for the idea that, armed with… a picture of said CIA agents, Al-Quieda gains some ability to kill them that they did not previously have, as if Al-Quieda had a global net of recon drones and face-recognition cameras, or an interest in hunting down individual people in the US over mass attacks.
It was dumb, most of all, for the idea of a dualist choice between destroying the tapes and releasing them unedited. That would be, if the baloney above has even a hair of grounding in genuine risk from “Al-Quieda”. Ever seen a videotape with a blurred face? How long have we been able to do that? Forty years?
I’m glad you agree that the people who did this should be punished. I’m not exactly sure why you felt the need to pick fights with liberals who agree with you over imaginary tonal nuances. Perhaps you feel psychologically uncomfortable agreeing with logical statements from people you don’t like.
This is a weakness.
11:29 am
“Only a fool would equate the treatmenr of McCain in VN to anything that has happened to the animals in our custody.”
The US has quite literally tortured innocent men to death in custody. McCain was actually a combatant and he survived so you’re quite right that it isn’t comparable at all.
(Here’s an example based on the Army’s own records: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/20/international/asia/20abuse.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)
11:32 am
What’s more troubling is that this is the SECOND time tapes have been destroyed and/or ended up missing. The government lost 72 hours of tape from its interrogation of Jose Padilla.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,258075,00.html
I’m not saying that our techniques of interrogation be broadcast to the world or put up on youtube. But to destroy all evidence and oversight from anyone? Who knows if those tapes would show just waterboarding or beatings with a rubber hose?
We’ll never know now because the best evidence was destroyed. I wish I could say that our government had more credibility than a terrorist suspect. I really do. But after destroying evidence twice, what choice do I have other than to believe this government tortures suspects.
11:41 am
Everyone is going round and round. What is or is not torture. But no one is addressing the heart of this story – the destruction of evidence. Maybe those dvds would have proved our administration’s views on torture vs. “enhanced” interrogation absolutely right (correct). But we’ll never know because members of this administration (aided by the dems and the republicans) DESTROYED EVIDENCE. Why does no one want to talk about that?
11:56 am
It’s hard to fathom the Right’s position on this, which seems to be “so what?” Heck, Michelle Malkin even blamed the Democrats for it! Disgusting! To the Righties, there’s no limit to the lengths our government should be able to go in the “war on terror.” Torture. Secret prisons. Guantanamo. Extraordinary rendition. Heck, many on the Right suggested that freedom of the speech and other liberties had their limits here on American soil. It’s all good in the good fight, right? How about if the government, based on the unnamed “reliable data” that always seems to be trumpted to justify the actions we thought only lesser governments engaged in, decided it was prudent to collect American citizens’ guns to prevent an attack? How about making background checks more stringent and eliminating sales at guns shows, etc.? As long as the unconstitutional and/or illegal acts are perpetrated on other people in other places, the Right couldn’t care less.
12:09 pm
Hi Rick. Well done and good on you. This is the latest example of why you are one of the few honest-to-God principled conservatives publishing anywhere.
12:43 pm
Given the CIA’s penchant for preserving its secret history (much of which we can read in declassified form today) destroying these tapes seems rather odd.
And many commenters here debating torture are missing the point – we’ll never know if it was torture or not since the evidence is gone. That is, I think, the point Rick was making.
1:13 pm
CIA Destroyed Subpoenaed Torture Tapes they Denied Existed While Congress Stood By…
The CIA destroyed at least two tapes of its operatives using “severe interrogation techniques” to obtain information from suspected terrorists, Mark Mazetti reports for the NYT. Both the 9/11 Commission and attorneys for Zacarias Moussaoui …
1:13 pm
[...] See Rick Moran , Jamses Joyner and Michelle Malkin for more insight H/T to Memeorandum Bookmark to: Tags: CIA, , Interrogation,, destroyed, tapes [...]
1:19 pm
Well said, Rick.
The CIA literally has huge warehouses filled with evidence and case files from the past. They archive everything. The idea that they would destroy these dvd’s for any reason other than to save their own asses is ridiculous.
1:52 pm
Well said Rich, well said.
The Right hasn’t completely abandoned their human-rights principles in favor of partisanship (Paul and McCain come to mind), but it distresses me how so many have jumped on the torture/stressful-interrogation bandwagon with ridiculous Jack-Boer scenarious featuring nuclear bombs in American cities, &c.
Speaking of which, even if Congress outlawed all waterboarding and soft torture techniques completely, the President still has constitutional authority to suspend habeaus corpus if home security circumstances required immediate intelligence extraction via Art. 1 Sect. 9.
It can be hard to think for yourself when the different sides are just screaming at each other. I couldn’t make up my mind on waterboarding until I re-read The Gulag Archipelago. Different situations, of course, but it vividly reminded me how important restraints on government are.
1:57 pm
Rick—I saw Salon.com’s mention of this post just below a mention of my blog (with Debbie Schlussel), thought I would check it out and am glad I did. Here’s why: Conservatives without experience in either the military or intelligence communities (I’m not one, by the way) need to realize that classified information gets destroyed every day at the discretion of the person with whom responsibility for the information rests. If every piece of classified information was kept for perpetuity, we would have enough classified data to stretch to the moon and back thousands of time, posing even greater risk to national security.
2:04 pm
A DVD is not a tape
2:52 pm
Islamonuts have been killing Americans for about 20 years now, The USS Cole, Beruit Army baracks, Bali nightclub, embassy bombings, Daniel Pearl, 911, German nightclubs, plane hijackings, the Achille Laro (cruise ship), and the list goes on. We have stopped many more plans to kill more Americans in the US. You know what they do to US soldiers when they capture one, no need to remind you of that. If you think that the average American cares if we torture one of them in order to infiltrate their networks to save more American lives, you’re as nuts as they are. If your son or daughter was chained to their torture wall, and we captured one of them who knew where it was, you’d do the torture yourself. Anyone out there who would not?
3:01 pm
Torture is the shame of America. The one thing that has dragged us down into the Hellish Coach Class of the rest of the world, somewhat below Europe.
We have had out torture cherry popped and this act alone has destroyed whatever “moral” high ground we supposedly occupied.
3:33 pm
Re: “The CIA literally has huge warehouses filled with evidence and case files from the past. They archive everything. The idea that they would destroy these dvd’s for any reason other than to save their own asses is ridiculous.”
We all know that hte CIA did not destroy the tapes. The Bush Administration (through its CIA appointees) is just SAYING that the tapes were dewstroyed.
After all, who is going to do anything about it?
Are any Congressional committees going to put the CIA Director under oath to testify, under penalty of purgery, that the tapes were destroyed, then work their way down the command chain, asking each one, in turn, who was responsible for custody of the tapes, until someone admits that s/he was the one who personally destroyed them?
Of course not.
4:52 pm
Thank you for writing this. Thank you for focusing on the core issues (and limiting yourself to only 2 swipes at folks on the left..a record low IMO). Thank you for not parsing or doing nuance.
you asked: And is it the kind of precedent we really want to set?
do you mean the precedent of the rule of law? or the precedent of accountability for actions? those are precedents i want set and upheld. i am more concerned with setting a precedent along the lines of “yeah, it was wrong but there are no consequences.”
5:00 pm
[...] See also: Michelle Malkin, Captains Quarters, Outside The Beltway, Rightwing Nuthouse Share Article Sphere: Related Content Trackback URL [...]
6:54 pm
1. I think the tapes were likely destroyed in an effort to avoid the interrogators identities becoming known. I mean, honestly, do we what these persons identities to become known? Then again, I will not say for sure that criminal misconduct has not occurred because I do not know all the facts.
2. To say that water-boarding is torture is not objective in and of itself. One can argue that is, but it is not clearly so. I personal feel that it is not, although other differs. There is much debate.
3. To say the United States should not have engaged in water-boarding even in the extremely limited (4 in total) cases we have seems incredible naivety. This essentially argues we should be willing to accept terrorist attacks on the United States for the sake of principle. Should we take this argument a step further and absolutely that any action that “violates principle” such as FDR ordering military trials for German spies, the militaries executions of German military infiltrators outside of uniform inside of American lines in WWII or Abraham Lincoln’s violations of habius corpus even if this risked defeat?
10:36 pm
Rick, you are right, someone does need to be held to account. They are called “The Shadow Warriors(Ken Timmerman).” They should be thrown in jail or put before a firing squad.
10:46 pm
Re: “3. To say the United States should not have engaged in water-boarding even in the extremely limited (4 in total) cases we have seems incredible naivety.â€
In terms of naive, do you really believe that only four individuals have been tortured under presidential orders? Where in George W. Bush’s track record have you EVER seen his administration admit the truth, until it is literally dragged out of them?
I will guarantee that the number of people tortured under Presidential orders numbers into the hundreds. This will, of course, not be found out for at least a year: By which time Conservatives will declare it “old news” and give Mr. Bush another of their automatic free passes.
As I said before: A great stain on America’s national honor is that we now officially sanction torture of prisoners. The only claim Conservatives can make is that we don’t torture as much as radical terrorists: “We are not the worst” is about all we can say. The United States no longer stands for higher standards or ideals. It only “doesn’t torture as much” as the worst ones out there.
Thank you George W. Bush. And thank you to all the “patriots” who have cheeringly brought us down to this level.
I know I will be sneered at by the “Patriots” out there: They do it so well. I welcome their condescension. I welcome those who look down on me for being willing to say “torturing human beings is wrong, no matter who is doing it”: “No matter what fictional TV show they use as justification”: “No matter how many of them declare ‘it isn’t so bad’ “.
And the worst part is the torturing can’t be undone. It cannot be “taken back”. Unlike Bill Clinton’s famous “mulligans” or the second tries our spineless media give the White House every time they are caught in a lie. The world will always remember the Administration that shifted America’s ideals from higher standards to that of torturers, gleefully and enthusiastically.
And not one Conservative will shed a tear for that loss. Not one.
11:50 pm
@Steve:
“We have stopped many more plans to kill more Americans in the US.”
We have? Really? Lets see . . . there was “shoe-bomber” Reid and, uh, who else? I hope you’re not including nonsense like the Miami 8. Do you actually know of “many other plots”, or are you just assuming because you’ve been told that it must be true?
@The-destroyed-to-protect-identities-posters:
This argument puzzles me. Does this mean the the CIA is incapable of blocking faces and names from the video? I can do that with my laptop—I sort of assumed they could too with all of their whizz-bang technology. Heck, re-record it with a big dot over the face . . . then there’s absolutely no way to unmask them. Solves that problem.
@The-”so-what”-posters:
Because it’s against the law. You don’t care about obeying the law, fine. Some Americans do. In fact, it’s kind of important to us. I guess some Americans are silly like that.
10:36 am
Thank you for being a voice of sanity on this issue. Right-leaning blogs are circling the wagons on this issue, which seems to be the default setting now: find out whether somebody on the left is the person making the charge, then rally behind the home team. You’re brave enough to state your opinion instead of going with a my-party-right-or-wrong stance. Sliding a beer down the bar at you man.
11:48 am
[...] Conservative Rick Moran published a post Thursday under the headline, CIA DESTROYS TORTURE TAPES. Early in the piece published at Right Wing Nut House, he writes, “I would hate to think that a sense of partisanship would intrude on what is a probable violation of the law.” [...]
12:59 pm
While I respect your thoughtful analysis, in the interests of brevity might I just say that I don’t agree.
Not with the arguments in favor of NOT destroying the tapes.
Not with the underlying arguments about how we are ‘better’ than that.
Not with the assumption that rules are rules even if they are completely at odds with ‘reality’ and that “that the Geneva Convention is ridiculously out of date, moldy in its thinking and laughably naive about men at war and the exigencies of the times. And the fact that we and other western countries are the only ones who even make an attempt to conduct ourselves by its rules is patently unfair and revealing of a sickening double standard abroad in the world.”
And certainly not with the assumption that our Western ‘goodness’ protects us from harm. Our weapons and the will to use them ,protect us from harm as they did in WW2. Goodness like ‘deserve’ in “The Unforgiven”, ‘ain’t got nothing to do with it’.
Someday a city will be obliterated and then the ‘true’ nature of society will reveal itself. We certainly won’t be fretting then about ‘stressful techniques’. One can only hope that, in the meantime, the ‘fretting’ beforehand does not in itself actually lead to that dire result.
3:03 pm
I was a life long Republican until Abu Ghariab. That did it for me.
By the way, we hung Japanese for waterboarding Marines.
Now we are torturing people. That is why today’s modern Republican conservative deserves to lose his or he voice in the government.
Looking at these comments, listening to these cowardly war mongers defend torture just disgusts me. This is the most morally bankrupt political party in history
6:22 pm
The terrorists in each news story in which waterboarding has been used are not protected under the rules of the Geneva Convention. They are not uniformed soldiers and break a host of other rules of war themselves.
7:27 pm
way to miss the point, Kyle
12:39 am
@Kyle:
Lets assume for the sake of argument that you are correct—the the suspects are not afforded the protections of the Geneva Convention.
So we can brand them? Rape them? flog them? Rack and thumbscrews? More than we can, we should do it? The only thing that keeps America from rising to the tops of the depravity charts is that pesky GC rule? When we decried Hussein and other dictators for torturing people, our concern was they were violating international agreements, and not that they were displaying the most vulgar and sadistic traits of humanity?
It amazes me that a political faction associated with conservative, christian morality is actively advocating immorality.
1:50 am
Wow… it now appears that the DVD’s were destroyed, not because of the fact that they depict US agents performing torture, but because of what the people being tortured actually said while being tortured. Fantastic.
2:38 am
Re: “Someday a city will be obliterated and then the ‘true’ nature of society will reveal itself. We certainly won’t be fretting then about ‘stressful techniques’. One can only hope that, in the meantime, the ‘fretting’ beforehand does not in itself actually lead to that dire result.”
Exactly the plot line of “24”. And Conservatives now accept a fictional TV series as absolute truth.
Can any Conservative here document when an actual (not fictional) ticking bomb has been discovered via torture?
However that is the justification that Conservatives are now required to accept for the United States now routinely sanctioning torture, regardless of the actual facts of the case.
That is like my saying that I have proof that aliens have visited the Earth because I have watched “The X Files”.
8:36 am
Spot on, Rick. This isn’t rocket science- as you said, “it is wrong and will come back to haunt us.” Especially enjoyed the ‘slide the beer’ comment at #55, the ‘you deserve better commenters’ observation at #30, and Dan’s ‘principled conservative’ hat tip at #38.
9:26 pm
The tapes destroyed primarily not because torture but because of what the tapes reveal. Possibly revealing the conspiracies behind 9/11 attack. This is another set of evidence revealing that the 9/11 was an inside job. The secret societies are directly responsible for this. Especially Bush family’s Skull & Bones. 2006 movie “the good shepherd”, directed by Robert De Nero, shows how the CIA was formed and the Skull & Bones influence over the intelligence community plus CIA’s torture…
9:34 pm
It will take a decade or more for Conservatives to survive what their support of torture has done to this movement.
The idiots salivating over “24” ( sorry Rick, it’s just a stupid show- I mean thank God for the writers strike) should be ashamed of what this show is actually saying.
It tells us that torture works. From what I see of the clusterf**k in Iraq, it obviously hasn’t worked one bit.
But that isn’t the point guys. if you have no line that you yourself can cross, then eventhually you will cross someone else’s line. The line of civilized people is torture. We have crossed it.
We have lost something precious that we may never get back: a backbone for law and decency.
1:34 am
Good discussion for the most part.
A few historic notes.
William E. Miller of Goldwater/Miller in 1964 was a prosecutor at the Nuremburg trials. He’d probably stroke out if he was still alive.
Since guerrilla warfare was contrary to “the customs and usages of war,” those engaged in it “divest themselves of the character of soldiers, and if captured are not entitled to the privileges of prisoners of war.”—General Arthur MacArthur, December 20, 1900
A Lieutenant Grover Flint described waterboarding as part of his testimony to Congress in the early 1900’s and a whole wiki discussion on torture during the Phillipine War in 1900 is here:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Secretary_Root%27s_Record:%22Marked_Severities%22_in_Philippine_Warfare
Like I always say, man makes history. Idiots repeat it. The children pay for it. Ranier is right.
2:14 pm
We have no idea what may have been on these, now destroyed, tapes.
Perhaps they show special agents loading explosives into the WTC, perhaps they showed Ted Kennedy at the grassy knoll in a “bo-peep” outfit, or maybe they showed the Roswell aliens dancing a gig.
2:46 pm
You can bet that this story has the conspriacy theories going.
3:03 pm
Dear Rick,
I hope that I’m not undermining your cause when I say that tend to side on the left of things, and at the same time, I pretty much agree with all that you are stating in your post here.
Its a prickly issue, and I think that there’s a lot of well-intended-but-unwise positions that span the political spectrum here in our country. Your position and reasoning is sound and I applaud your stand.
thanks
3:07 pm
The entire problem here is that torture keeps getting defined down.
Cold room? – Torture
Sleep Depravation? Torture
Load Music? – Torture
Water Boarding? – Torture
Attention Grab? – Torture
Singular Face Slap? – Torture
Singular Chest Punch? – Torture
The question is, where is the line drawn? If we are drawing the line so simply that it includes all of the above things, that’s just crazy.
My opinion is that the Dems can go on record and pass legislation declaring what is and what is not legal in regards to interagation. If they won’t do that, then they should just STFU.
3:47 pm
The CIA always keeps everything. The only reason that they did this was because of a concern that some may be prosecuted for torture.
4:44 pm
Re: “My opinion is that the Dems can go on record and pass legislation declaring what is and what is not legal in regards to interagation. If they won’t do that, then they should just STFU.”
Actually the US Congress and President did, many years ago when they ratified the Geneva Convention regarding torture.
Except that Attorney General Gonzalez and president Bush declared the Geneva Conventions “inoperative”.
Now, to re-establish that law, Democrats must get past a certain Republican fillibuster and Bush veto.
Conservatives, who cannot tell the difference between fictional “24” and real life, have defined torture as whatever Presdient Bush wants: Given the fact that they have decided they are more loyal to the man personally thanthey are to their conscience (those who sitll know what that is).
5:29 pm
I am unaware of any article that the the US has agreed to that states illegal combatants are subject to any protections at all. While there is an article in the Convention extending to such terrorists it has never been ratified by the US.
So what are you basing such an assertion on and could you point out the ratified article?
9:38 pm
This discussion is just BS.
We are at war.
You cannot win a war unless you are tougher then your enemy.
The solution is simple….shoot them and interrogate them on the battlefield. No prisoners.
The enemy does that and none on the left blink an eye.
Make sure that they know we are the meanest bastards on the block.
That’s what will end the war, not this namby pamby BS about whose more cruel, us or them….
Read what they do to our people that they capture then tell me about torture. Waterboarding vs a knife splitting you up the ass?
I’ll take the waterboard, I won’t like it but I’ll live through it.
This nation better get a backbone or we’ll lose this war.
9:12 am
Steve:
Your comment was deleted for being outrageously, over the top, ridiculous.
“Conservatives love torture?”
Proof please. And while you’re at it, include some proof that Bigfoot exists and that microwave ovens were invented by aliens.
9:21 am
Philly Steve
“Actually the US Congress and President did, many years ago when they ratified the Geneva Convention regarding torture.”
Actually, they didn’t slick. Feel free to go thru the GC and show me where it lists permissible and impermissible specific interregation techniques.
Furthermore, since our enemies are not following the geneva convention, I really don’t think they should be afforded its protections. And, since Al Queda is not a signer of the convention, nor is it following the tenants, the US has no legal obligation to follow it (moral, another story).
12:00 pm
>I am unaware of any article that the the US has agreed to that states illegal combatants are subject to any protections at all.
It’s called the Geneva Conventions. Here is the relevant part:
Article 5
The present Convention shall apply to the persons referred to in Article 4 from the time they fall into the power of the enemy and until their final release and repatriation.
Should any doubt arise as to whether persons, having committed a belligerent act and having fallen into the hands of the enemy, belong to any of the categories enumerated in Article 4, such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal.
In other words, either a person is a civilian or an enemy soldier, and if you don’t know which they are, they get POW protections until a tribunal decides their status.
1:10 pm
Rick:
steve’s allegation the conservatives love torture is putrageous, but Marv’s allegations that the left doesn’t blink an eye when people ar killed isn’t?
Is it the phrasing or the sentiment that makes it acceptable?
@ Marv:
“That’s what will end the war, not this namby pamby BS about whose more cruel, us or them….”
you really think that people who are willing to die are going to stop because we’re mean? “Gee, that Great Satan is too tough . . . guess we better quit.” Really? Seems a remarkably rational approatch for remarkably irrational people.
1:25 pm
“shoot them and interrogate them on the battlefield. No prisoners.”
Could this commenter tell us what percentage of those held in GITMO were captured on the battlefied?
11:15 pm
Busboy,
No, I do not think that “being mean” will make our enemy simply give up and quit. It’s obviously not that simple. But it may shorten the conflict.
Take the japanese during WW2 for example, who say the Americans as weak and soft, not having the same willingness to die.
By the time Okinawa came around, with the savagery that took place, the Japanese knew that the Americans could be as ruthless as they and it had an effect.
But just as lack of national resolve in Vietnam led to us leaving just as we were winning, this discussion of whether waterboarding is torture only enables them.
If we think waterboarding is too tough and they see this national wreching over how bad we are, they will see us as weak and without resolve. I heard a discussion of this on Fox tonight with one commentator stating we should not do it (waterboard) because it might make the enemy do cruel things to our soldiers that they take prisoner. Fact is, #1) they don’t take prisoners, #2, they do far worse to our soldiers when they kill them than waterboarding, which DOESN’T KILL.
They must fear us as they try to make us fear them, it’s as simple as that.
Hume,
It is my understanding that nearly all of the early prisoners at GITMO were captured on the battlefield. I also understand that that has changed. But I also understand that GITMO is not our only detention center but is reserved for high value detainees. My point was this: the debate on GITMO, waterboarding, cruelty, Geneva convention, torture/not torture….. would end if we simply dropped them where they stood instead of taking them prisoner. Makes it a moot point.
Ellis, you stopped an article too late…Article 4 states who is afforded rights under the convention, 4.1.2 and 4.1.3 exclude our current enemy.
2:51 am
@Marv:
“They must fear us as they try to make us fear them, it’s as simple as that.”
You still haven’t explained why. Let’s just grant you the difference for the sake of debate—that “the terrorists” can see us as either wimpy moralists or brass-balled savage monstrosities. Will either cause them to not attack us? No. If you believe that showing them our “Demonicly Evil” face will somehow scare them, then I respectfully suggest you’re guessing, and you’re guessing based on your concepts as an American, not based on the mindset of a jihadist.
If it’s not going to change their behavior toward us, then the only reason I can fathom to do it is for our own personal satisfaction—to get back that “we’re the ass-kickingest mofos on the block!!” swagger we had prior to 9/11.
To me, that’s not a reason to torture people, no matter how evil they are.
You note that the Fighting spirit of the GIs “had an effect” on the Japaneese. What was the effect? Did they cede territory to us? Give up? Sure, they respected how fiercely we could fight . . . but they kept fighting. We respected how fierce they were . . . and we kept fighting. When the Japaneese resorted to Kamakaze attacks, we were “impressed” by how fanatical and dedicated they were . . . but we didn’t turn the ships around. Even presuming the attitudes changed, what was the practical effect?
If there’s no practical effect, then why sacrifice our integrity?
9:39 am
@Marv:
“The solution is simple….shoot them and interrogate them on the battlefield. No prisoners.”
Here’s the problem with that:
“There have been 759 people detained in Guantanamo. According to Department of Defense data, despite public assertions to the contrary by senior Department of Defense officials, only one of the 759 detainees was alleged to have been initially captured on a battlefield by United States forces.”
Quote by: Professor Mark P. Denbeaux, Seton Hall Law School, Director of the Seton Hall Law School Center for Policy and Law,December 11, 2007, in written testimony before the Senate subcommittee.
http://judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=3052&wit_id=6816
You presume that these are people that were caught in pitched gunbattles, then taken into custody. The reality seems to be these were people that bounty hunters brought in and claimed were reeeeeeeely bad terrorists. We accepted that and locked them up for six years and counting.
Does your opinion change if the people we’re abusing are innocent? Or does it not matter? If the whole point is to look vicious, then it doesn’t matter who we’re abusing. If the point is to fight the terrorists . . . then abusing innocent people doesn’t seem to have a purpose at all.
If the argument is we have to abuse and violate innocents until we randomly stumble across the possible “honest-to-God threat-to-America terrorist”, I just can’t agree with that, and I hope you don’t either.