Torturous
Monday's Washington Post carries a lengthy, comprehensive and ultimately stunning piece by Barton Gellman and Jo Becker that begins a four-part series on the unprecedented power of Vice-President Dick Cheney.
In rich and rather nauseating detail, we learn of the relentless efforts undertaken by Cheney over the last five years within the administration to promote policies of torture. Gellman and Becker finely parse the verious positions adopted by key players ranging from Condi Rice to Colin Powell to Al Gonzales to former Justice Dept. officials John Yoo and Ted Olson in developing the now notorious practices of disregarding the Geneva Conventions and, um, torturing prisoners in U.S. custody.
At every step and juncture, it was the iron will of Cheney and his staff that pushed for the most flagrant, extreme solutions regardless of all boundaries of international law. When Powell and Rice learned to just what extent the laws of decency had been violated they had the good sense to protest, but they both lacked the courage to take up the issue personally with Cheney. Simply put, they feared the unbridled power he exercised within the administration.
Cheney's influence on this gruesome matter became paramount beginning in January 2002 when CIA officials met with then White House Counsel Gonzales in order to complain that the Geneva Conventions were in the way of their effectively interrogating terrorist suspects. Says the report:
From that moment, well before previous accounts have suggested, Cheney turned his attention to the practical business of crushing a captive's will to resist. The vice president's office played a central role in shattering limits on coercion in U.S. custody, commissioning and defending legal opinions that the Bush administration has since portrayed as the initiatives, months later, of lower-ranking officials.
![[Photo]](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2007/06/21/PH2007062101461.jpg)
Cheney and his allies, according to more than two dozen current and former officials, pioneered a novel distinction between forbidden "torture" and permitted use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading" methods of questioning. They did not originate every idea to rewrite or reinterpret the law, but fresh accounts from participants show that they translated muscular theories, from Yoo and others, into the operational language of government.Most fascinating to me in this report is to what degree Cheney was able to bulldoze even some of the most conservative critics within the Bush White House. It's easy to make fun of Cheney as some sort of evil Prince of Darkness. It also seems damn accurate.
The vice president's unseen victories attest to traits that are often ascribed to him but are hard to demonstrate from the public record: thoroughgoing secrecy, persistence of focus, tactical flexibility in service of rigid aims and close knowledge of the power map of government. On critical decisions for more than six years, Cheney has often controlled the pivot points -- tipping the outcome when he could, engineering stalemate when he could not and reopening debates that rivals thought were resolved.Having spent my share of time reporting on and living in dictatorial states like Chile, Peru and Argentina, the Cheney-sort of personality is not unknown to me. Every authoritarian regime usually has one or two outstanding figures of this type. True enough to stereotype, they most generally occupy the post of chief of the secret police, Minister of Interior, or special advisor to the President. But what's this guy doing as an elected Vice-President of the United States?
June 25th, 2007 at 5:41 am
“Gravitas”…It’s a wonderful thing
June 25th, 2007 at 5:43 am
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/ This is a link to a BBC reporter being tortured in a new way. The enemy is very creative when it comes to forcing people to their knees, are they not Mr Bolton?
June 25th, 2007 at 5:56 am
The series began yesterday, Sunday, but today’s part is the centerpiece. See also: http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/06/most-important-unanswered-question.html
June 25th, 2007 at 7:01 am
And, your point Fred is … what, precisely? Or, perhaps. Yeah, Fred… So, what?
My mother’s words still ring in my ears. “Darlin’, I don’t care what so-and-so does, gets to do, or wants to do. The simple fact is you don’t.”
Cenzio, that is a most interesting question. I haven’t a clue, of course. I’m not sure anyone does. But if it ever gets answered, I’m quite confident it won’t elevate either the president or the VP in my eyes. As any number of others have noted, if we don’t impeach this pair for their crimes, I’m not sure if we’ll ever impeach anyone for anything.
Another interesting note being made about this series is this one http://tinyurl.com/27924z at digby, and this one http://tinyurl.com/yuef3b at Brad DeLong about some heavy handed (ham-handed?) editorial intervention levered on the writers.
June 25th, 2007 at 7:15 am
The point, lots, isn’t what your mamma told you about how to behave. I’m not saying we should do it too. How could that possibly have entered your mind? The point is don’t forget what THEY they are like.
June 25th, 2007 at 7:28 am
I’m not forgetting, Fred. It’s gut wrenching. My point is, what they do shouldn’t have a bearing on what we do, since I thought you were suggesting a tit-for-tat strategy, which you aren’t. My apologies.
June 25th, 2007 at 7:39 am
“Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. … He saved hundreds of thousands of lives,†Judge Scalia said. Then, recalling Season 2, where the agent’s rough interrogation tactics saved California from a terrorist nuke, the Supreme Court judge etched a line in the sand.
“Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?†Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges. “Say that criminal law is against him? ‘You have the right to a jury trial?’ Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don’t think so.
“So the question is really whether we believe in these absolutes. And ought we believe in these absolutes.â€
Don’t’ think, I would ever want to state sanction torture, but I would never convict Jack either. So where do you draw the line. It is easy to say NO to extreme methods, when you don’t have responsibility for millions of people’s lives in a world where there are people who would PRAISE GOD for the opportunity to kill/torture thousands/millions.
But I do know (like most men) I would KILL a human being in a second to protect my family.
June 25th, 2007 at 9:57 am
How did Cheney become VP? Simple. The boy-Emperor from Crawford asked Darth to head a “Search Committee” to find a running mate and, damn, wouldn’t you know it? Cheney looked far an wide and saw that HE was the fairest in the land. And Bush agreed. And the Press applauded. A “Seasoned and tested” Washington type to help the young Texan navigate the ways of the Capital and provide much needed wisdom.
Did he have some problems with his ties to Halliburton? Remmeber his severence package? Well that was sour grapes from Al Gore and Joe Lieberman! And besides Big Al lied about touring aa disaster with James Lee Witt! Honestly now. How could you trust him!
And then there was Colin PPowell. Hard to recall now but once upon a time he was America’s favorite Negro. The GOP Obama. Another assurance that the “Grown ups” would be in charge. Too bad everyone overlooked this paragon’s past (including a staff post in the Americal Division when a certain LT Calley of that outfit took a stroll thru My Lai. Powell’s roll in reporting – or actually covering it up was documented by Sy Hersh.) Powell was then and is now a perfect example of the DC bureaucrat who like the “Vicar of Bray” always lands on his feet. Alas, not this time. If Powell smelled a rat in Iraq or in Gitmo he certainly kept it to himself. He diddn’t mind lying to the UN in 2002. No, he regrets it now that the shitstorm has hit. Now he wants to cover his skirts and keep it clean. Too late!
And Fredo. The Latino Champion. Anyone here remember the fine work he did as clemency secretary for Shrub? Was it really a stretch for him to find the Geneva conventions “Quaint?” But the Dems joined in lockstep to confirm him because the Hispanic community wanted one of their own and, much like the immigration debate, its not nice to piss off the rising voter demographic.
These guys are thugs. As John Dean wrote in “Conservatives without Conscience”
they are authoritarian personalities and make Ehrlicman, Haldeman, and Nixon look like card carrying members of the ACLU. Anyone here remember the “Houston Plan?” Well supposedly J Edgar Hoover scuttled that Nixon idea. But here it is in spades!
Fantasy land. Scaliaa talks of Jack Bauer as a real person. Cheney and the PNACers plan perpetual war. Norman Podhoritz wants to bomb Iran and his son says we erred in Iraq by not killing off all the Sunni men between 15 and 35. And from our watchdogs in the press? Tom Friedman says maybe its good to kick ass every so often to get their attention.
We’re war criminals folks. Now you know how the Germans could claim that they had no idea what was going on in those camps at Dachau and Bergin-Belsen. Pogo said it – we met the enemy and they is us!
June 25th, 2007 at 10:01 am
And let us no forget the contribution of those who insisted, in 2000, that there was no difference between Gor and Bush and held those Cute “Shadow Conventions” where Chris Hitchens and Arianna Huffington could be oh so Moral. Now Chris is an enabler and Arianna loves Gore!
But Ralph goes marching on. Just the other day telling us the parties were “Tweedledum”
and “Tweedldee.” and sadly, his cultists still argue he is blameless and, besides, Gore would have done the same.
Zinoviev and Beria would be proud!
June 25th, 2007 at 10:33 am
Don’t bad-talk Zinoniev, he was one of the good guys.
Is that Jack Bauer/Scalia quote real?
June 25th, 2007 at 10:37 am
Scratch that, it is.
June 25th, 2007 at 10:47 am
And its also interesting to see the pieces on how this series made the WaPo in the first place. See Laura Rozen. There was, apparently, somewhat of a battle there and she sees evidence of some really clumsy editing going on. Also why now? In
June? The series was apparently ready to go much sooner. Fred Hiatt? Len Downie? Cracks in the media establishment?
Is this important? Sure, just like reading ISVESTIA and PRAVDA in the old days to get a handle on what the line of the day was. And I think the Great and the Good are scared shitless by what these clowns have done and threaten to do.
June 25th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Calm down. V.P. Cheney holds a relatively powerless and boring job. He’s the President of the Senate and can only vote in case of a deadlock, and he presides over the official count of electoral ballots. Big deal. John Adams said that it was “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.”
Why, if that position had any influence, then Al Gore would have done something about global warming when he was V.P. for eight years.
June 25th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Occasional deviation from the highest standards of treatment of prisoners can occur anywhere, and perhaps there is some kind of realistic “Jack Bauer” exception in the heat of battle or at a time of emergency–the suitcase nuke about to explode, say.
Adopting systematic mistreatment of prisoners as official policy is something different, especially considering that so many of our prisoners seem to be unlucky SOB’s who happened to get caught in a dragnet (“Round up some sand n******rs, corporal.”) Setting morality and legality aside, a policy of routinely abusing such people seems stupid and doomed to failure. There’s an old line, “Grab them by the balls and their hearts and minds will follow.” It may be mildly amusing as a joke, but it doesn’t work.
June 25th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Yes Cummings, you and Judge Scalia can find common cause over a boxed set of “24″.
RIC, to call Hitchens an “enabler” is pretty generious at this point. He has been point man, a disinformation all star, in promoting the U.S.’s new policys on torture. He has written off all attocities in Iraq as “a few bad apples” and applauded the abuse of prisoners like John Walker Lingh.
We should not forget the role in “how does this guy get to be Vice Presidnet” played by Dick’s biggest fan circa 2000-2005, Chris Matthews. Chirs wanted Dick “on the ground” after Katrina to make sure things got cracking.
June 25th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Founding Father still knows best:
Why does Dick Cheney hate America?
June 25th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
Founding Father still knows best:
Why do Democrats hate God?
June 25th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
When I begin encountering humor like this, out in the blogsphere, I will know it’s official. In the meantime I only worry about _when_ I might encounter something like this.
from: http://www.coldwarjokes.com/kgb-cia.htm
What is an exchange of opinion?
You go to the KGB with your opinion and, after torture, you return with theirs!
June 25th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Constitutional Riddles for Children, a legal primer for primaries by Mavis Beacon:
An old woman across the street has slipped and fallen and is lying on the ground. She needs help and there isn’t anyone around. I’m ready to charge to her aid, but before I can rush over to help I remember that I’m standing in the middle of a city block. I’m not at a corner and crossing would be jay-walking – a violation of the law! What to do? Should I cross the street and risk the legal penalties or obey the law, walk to a corner, and let the old lady lie there for an extra few minutes? Perhaps I should call 911 and try to get advance permission to break the law? Or maybe alternative intersection-bypass techniques like skipping or hopping will suffice? Must we remake the entire legal system? Avoid a constitutional crisis and save the old woman or find the answer on page 89.
June 25th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Woodrow,
I’m a regular mass-attending Roman Catholic so your comment is typically witless. I believe religion has its place, but it should be an individual choice (including the right to not believe at all) and separating government from religion protects all of our rights to believe what we wish.
For example, my friend Brian Reinbolt, when he was going to Lakewood Elementary School in Huntsville, AL, was required, in violation of the law, was reuired by his teacher to memorize a passage from the New Testament. Brian was Jewish and the New Testament had no relevance for him. It was as offensive to his parents as if your children were required to memorize a passage from the Quran in public school.
Your ability to reason apparently doesn’t extend far enough to realize that if you government out of religion and religion out of government, your freedom to believe what you wish to believe is only enhanced.
June 25th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Guess I’m a little late….
You know, Woody, you are on the receiving end of more ad hominem here than nearly anyone else. And, I’d really like to refrain from piling on, but your response to Randy Paul (of *all* people), makes me wonder if you aren’t experiencing some obscure form of selective memory loss.
June 25th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Gotta love it when a “conservative” suggests that there’s some wisdom in the notion that Congress, of all things, is competent to assist its constituents in getting closer to Jesus. Congress can’t even pass a respectable tax code. How the hell are they supposed to help us with the really tough stuff ? And what if one could care less about Jesus ? Is it the job of the Beltway hacks to give you a little push in his direction anyway in their pursuit of piety…or more likely, PR ?
If Woody didn’t supply these “conservative” self-parodies, I swear we’d have to invent them.
June 25th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Incidentally, the quote of G Washington’s that Woody tosses into the fray was, apparently his admonition to the Delaware Indian Chiefs. Given the context, this quote is essentially meaningless for discerning any role of Congress to propogate religion among those citizens whom it actually represents.
Washington also is attributed the following quotations: ““The Constitution is the guide which I never will abandon†and ““The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.”
Which raises the question, why does “my” Washington hate Woody’s “Washington” AND Dick Cheney ?
June 25th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
There seems to be a lot of self righteous nattering, regarding torture and Cheney, but no specifics about what YOU would do if confronted by a difficult decision.
Here is the situation (or close enough for my point), The CIA had captured Abu Zubaida, then believed to be a top al-Qaeda operative, on March 28, 2002. The CIA also believes that Abu Zubaida was involved in the purchase of three suitcase nukes from the Russian black market. The CIA also believes that a plot is underway to detonate one of them in Western Europe within the next 90 days.
What is YOUR POLICY going to be on INTEROGATION of ZUBAIDA in April 2002??????
June 25th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
One reason I have never felt impelled to prose-letyze on religion is that I would have to admit how very little I understand about the most fundamental mysteries of my/our existence. Like, why are we here? What is the point of life, if there is a point? Like that. And I don’t know many people who have answers to those questions that are both honest and satisfactory.
As for Cheney, the problem is not, as Woody (I suspect facetiously) suggests, that the power of the vice-presidency has gotten out of control. The problem is that Cheney could so thoroughly escape the earthly bounds of his constitutional office and become, effectively, the Decider. One would imagine that he has done so by getting Bush to submit all substantive questions to Cheney for vetting and to “recommend alternatives” for action. One would further imagine that Cheney then either (1) offers only one alternative that Bush could understand or support, and a lot of others that would be objectionable to POTUS on the face; or (2) offer alternatives that are all essentially the same, giving Bush the illusion of “choice.” There may be some other archetype ‘decision matrix,’ but the Big Idea is that Bush chooses from a field that is already well-harvested.
When and if we learn what Cheney and his office have been doing for nearly 7 years, we will be shocked.
June 25th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Pokey, these kinds of thought experiments are too disvorced from context to reasonably formulate any kind of rational response. I read the full wikki discussion. I see plenty there that would have given me pause, but nothing which I feel would have justified the waterboarding of Abu Zubaida. And, that’s my point. On the face of it, I object to torture. Period. There is plenty of empirical work to argue against its effectiveness. And, there would have to be substantial credible evidence of an impending threat for me to even consider it. I don’t see substantial credible evidence in the wikki discussion, even after the fact. What I see are a lot of contradictory claims. And, from our current administration – given it’s track record to date – I’m disinclined to believe any claim they might make. And, that’s the end point problem – they’ve cried wolf too often. So, given that I rule out torture, and the messengers cannot be believed, if it were left to me, something might blow up… or, not.
June 25th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
And, by “or not” I don’t mean I might change my mind. I mean, the supposition to support torture in the first place might, or might not, have a basis in reality. If nothing blows, then the assumption that suggested torture in the first place was wrong.
June 25th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
In 1997, former Russian National Security Advisor Alexander Lebed made public claims about lost “suitcase nukes” following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In an interview with the newsmagazine Sixty Minutes, Lebed said:
“I’m saying that more than a hundred weapons out of the supposed number of 250 are not under the control of the armed forces of Russia. I don’t know their location. I don’t know whether they have been destroyed or whether they are stored or whether they’ve been sold or stolen, I don’t know.â€
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suitcase_bomb
June 25th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Pokey, I have no doubt that there are weapons adrift in the world. And, I further have no doubt that some of those weapons can impose a degree of real catastrophe. What I’d argue is that the use of torture to find those weapons is inefficient at best, unethical for certain, and, if time were of the essence, it would most probably not reveal the location of a single “suitcase” in time to make any difference.
June 25th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
More than Democrats hating God or Republicans loving him, I want to know why God treats us humans with so much contempt and callousness.
June 25th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demiurge – answer to the God question…
K Nardy…I can’t stand 24. I was expressing shock that the grandson of Tommy Douglas would continue to involve himself with such Goebellian material.
June 25th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Yes, here are some examples of what Marc is talking about.
The Department of Defense has identified 3,544 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the deaths of the following service members yesterday:
AGAMI, Daniel J., 25, Pfc., Army; Coconut Creek, Fla.; First Infantry Division.
BENTZ, David J. III, 20, Pfc., Army; Newfield, N.J.; Third Infantry Division
BROOKSHIRE, Sid W., 36, Maj., Army; of Missouri; Third Infantry Division.
CHARFAUROS, Joe G. Jr., 33, Specialist, Army; Rota, Mariana Islands; Third Infantry Division.
GAMBLE, Carter A. Jr., 24, Specialist, Army; Brownstown, Ind.; Third Infantry Division.
HEBERT, Anthony D., 19, Pfc., Army; Lake City, Minn.; First Infantry Division.
HUBBELL, Darren P., 38, Staff Sgt., Army; Tifton, Ga.; Third Infantry Division.
KENNY, Joseph P., 20, Specialist, Army; Veneta, Ore.; First Cavalry Division.
LEEMHUIS, Thomas R., 23, Pfc., Army; Binger, Okla.; First Infantry Division.
MONTENEGRO, Alphonso J. II, 22, Sgt., Army; Queens, N.Y.; First Infantry Division.
VEITCH, Jerimiah J., 21, Pfc., Army; Dibble, Okla.; Second Infantry Division.
WOOD, Ryan M., 22, Sgt., Army; Oklahoma City; First Infantry Division.
June 26th, 2007 at 6:32 am
Listener on the sidelines:
Nothing ad hominem in what I wrote.
June 26th, 2007 at 7:38 am
Randy, true story…. The other night I actually dreamed that I was made the Pope. There was an eleborate ceremony, and I thought it was strange since I’m not even Catholic (which would kill the old line, “Is the Pope Catholic?”). One of the first things that came to my mind was, “Well, I don’t have to worry about retirement, now.” One of my first official duties in my next dream will be to hear your confessions. I’ll try to give you several hours.
June 26th, 2007 at 7:44 am
Well, as I said, “Don’t’ think, I would ever want to state sanction torture”, if not for any reason other then it is bad business and bad PR.
However, I do NOT have to be the one who is responsible for thousands of deaths for my inaction.
June 26th, 2007 at 7:45 am
My response to Randy was simply that hand-picking “wisdom” from founding fathers doesn’t necessarily prove that they were right, since many disagreed, or that what was quoted applies to the particular reality of the situation being discussed. In fact, most liberals don’t like what our founding fathers laid out. But, since our founding fathers do have a good track record, maybe someone would give me a quote showing where they deemed abortion to be allowed in the constitution…but, don’t go too far afield and off-track from Marc’s topic.
June 26th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Woody, the earliest abortion laws date to around 1820 when it was proscribed after the fourth month of pregnancy. So this obviously wasn’t an issue, either pro or con, directly on their minds – although it’s clear that issues of protection from undue state intervention against one’s person is inherent in their intent, with the devil in whatever details one might apply this concept to. What I would love to hear from a “conservative” is just where the founding fathers imputed “human rights” of the constitution to corporations, which are artificial constructs solely to allow persons to conduct business in concert while dispensing with the personal liabilities of an individual entrepreneur. This has always mystified me.
June 26th, 2007 at 11:35 am
“However, I do NOT have to be the one who is responsible for thousands of deaths for my inaction.”
That’s the “Jack Bauer” thesis – it’s hard to imagine in an extreme hypothetical that the mythical Jack Bauer isn’t taking a rational risk. It’s also hard to imagine a mythical jury convicting the mythical Jack Bauer – or at least the combination of mythical jury and judge extracting any harsh penalty for the mythical Bauer’s mythical “extreme response”. The hardest thing to imagine is an episode of 24 in which the mythical Jack Bauer goes and testifies to a congressional committee that this guy Dick Cheney is absolutely spot on and we need to change our laws so that heroic mythical figures such as himself, faced with extreme hypotheticals face no conseuences when they engage in an extreme response. Whatever else one might think of the imaginary Mr. Bauer, he’s no sniveling, whining chickenshit who wants to forge for himself a bureaucratic place to hide behind the tortured “legal” reasoning and reinventions of punks like John Yoo or a crazy old coot like Dick Cheney.
June 26th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Marc Cooper: …I want to know why God treats us humans with so much contempt and callousness.
God may choose to wait now and reveal some things for when you get to Heaven…oh, wait a minute.
June 26th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
reg, your mystery about human rights for corporations is as much a mystery as taxes on corporations.
June 26th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
The Dick Cheney role was played much better by Raul Julia in Moon Over Parador.
June 26th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Reg, the “Human Rights” for Corporations that you ask about come from a SCOTUS decision in the 1880′s (Southern Pacific v. Santa Clara) which defined corporations as “persons” for purposes of applying the 14th Amdt to them thus granting those entities “Due Process Rights” originally intended to protect newly freed slaves.
I assume Woody is referring to the argument that corporate income taxes are always passed thru to the customer in the form of higher prices. I;m sympathethic to that. Of course the answer is to make INDIVIDUAL rates higher and eliminate the capital gains distinction.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:24 am
One of my first official duties in my next dream will be to hear your confessions. I’ll try to give you several hours.
If you were the Pope, I would most assuredly leave the church, as the beast would clearly have won, notwithstanding the miter hiding the glow from the three sixes on your scalp.
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