Torture Team by Philippe Sands
- 25 Apr 08, 12:13 PM
On 2 December 2002 Donald Rumsfeld signed a memorandum authorising 18 techniques of interrogation not previously allowed by the United States.
In Torture Team leading QC Philippe Sands traces the life of the memorandum and examines the use of torture at Guantanamo and the US airbase at Bagram.
He also and explores issues of individual responsibility.
Extract from:
Torture Team
Deception, Cruelty and the
Compromise of Law
Published by Penguin Books
Only a few pieces of paper can change the course of history. On
Tuesday, 2 December 2002 Donald Rumsfeld signed one that did.
It was an ordinary day. The Secretary of Defense wasn't travelling.
No immediate decisions were needed on Iraq and Washington
awaited Saddam's declaration on weapons of mass destruction.
The only notable public event in the Secretary's diary for that day was the President's visit to the Pentagon to sign a Bill to put the Pentagon in funds for the next year. Signings are big, symbolic public events.
They offer an opportunity to lavish praise and on this occasion neither man showed restraint. The Secretary of Defense introduced President Bush effusively as our 'leader in the global war on terrorism'. The President thanked Mr Rumsfeld warmly, for his
candour, and for doing such a fabulous job for the American people.
The United States faced unprecedented challenges, Bush told a large and enthusiastic audience, and terror was one of them. The United States would respond to these challenges, and it would do so in
the 'finest traditions of valour'. And then he signed a large increase in the Defense budget.
That same day, elsewhere in the Pentagon, a less public event took place for which there was no comment, no publicity, no fanfare. With a signature and a few scrawled words Donald Rumsfeld cast aside America's international obligations and reneged on the tradition of valour to which President Bush had referred. Principles for the conduct of interrogation, dating back more than a century to President Lincoln's famous instruction of 1863 that 'military necessity does not admit of cruelty', were discarded. His approval of new and aggressive interrogation techniques would produce devastating consequences.
Comment number 1.
At 25th Apr 2008, barriesingleton wrote:TORTURE
If you have stomach for realising how little grip mankind has on "civilised" behaviour, read Zimbardo's "The Lucifer Effect". The problem is that basic bloke is nasty and sophisticated bloke happy to let him be. It is a hell of a long road from here to a gentle world; we are rushing along it - the wrong way - but Gordon's Moral Compass is demagnetised and Dubya's only points to Victory. One can only assume that Mugabe's Compass points right up his . . .
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Comment number 2.
At 26th Apr 2008, Hari_riah_poissah wrote:A key principle in the arguments regarding the USA's treatment of those detained in "The War on Terror" is that the US does not extend to them the protection of the Geneva Conventions. In that, the USA is correct. The terrorists are irregular combatants. The Geneva Concentions do not afford protection to such.
The Provisional IRA, INLA and Loyalist Paramilitaries were not treated under the Geneva Conventions but under Criminal Law.
The Geneva Conventions do not require that regular soldiers be treated according to the Conventions in perpetuity. For example, if a soldier misuses the white flag, eg entices the enemy to believe he/she is surrendering and then opens fire, then the soldier(s) who acted in this way are no longer protected by the Geneva Conventions.
Render fear to those who deserve fear and honour those to whom honour is due.
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Comment number 3.
At 1st May 2008, Nullius123 wrote:Debates on the legality and effectiveness of torture all rest on the assumption that torture is about obtaining information. I'm not sure that this is always the case - in fact I suspect that it rarely is. As Noam Chomsky says, torture usually has more to do with "maintaining credibility" - *sending* a message - than gathering intelligence. Those who torture are broadcasting a coded message to enemies and potential enemies (and even dissenting friends): I will get my way, by fair means or foul, so don't cross me. With respect to American torture, the message seems crystal clear. Lest we forget, might is right.
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Comment number 4.
At 16th May 2008, markheseltine wrote:Quite simply, the Americans reacted to 911, rather than responded to it. Their 'war on terrorism' was too quick off the mark and lacked long term focus. They threw away the good-will created by the awful events of that day and they discarded the post second world war lessons and ethos that millions, rather than 3,000, died for.
A man that can sit in a kindergarten school and fail to react to an attack on the World Trade Centre when it had years before been attacked, is a man without history and a man without judgment.
Because of that president's poor judgment, America is now a lost soul watching from the side-lines as China, Europe and Islam begin to assert moral authority in this world. The question is whether America can learn from its failure to understand the needs of a world badly in need of stability and work with them.
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Comment number 5.
At 19th May 2008, Xie_Ming wrote:Legalism is not justice.
A military court is not a civil court.
Practically, field conditions differ from higher echelon conditions.
Torture is a form of terror.
Has anyone read the transcripts from Guantanamo?
One fellow was a completely honest man- he said he had fought the Russians when they occupied his country and then he fought the Americans when they did the same. He said he had not been tortured.
But, he added, "most of these prisoners have nothing at all to do
with any of this and you ought to set them free."
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