Richard Reeves: On the Matter of Torture
The order from the commander in chief regarding torture of prisoners was clear: "It has been recognized at all times that this manner of interrogating human beings, of putting them under torture, produces nothing good. The unfortunates say whatever comes into their heads, and everything they think we want to know."
The commander in chief, and that was the title he preferred then, was Napoleon Bonaparte, leader of the French invasion and occupation of Egypt in 1798. The torture order was dated Nov. 11, 1799. Napoleon, a mass murderer by any standard, was quite specific in his thinking: He was not against torture as punishment; he was prohibiting it only as an intelligence technique.
In fact, 19 days before, on Oct. 23, 1799, he had issued this order regarding 2,000 insurgents captured during an insurgency against the French occupiers: "Please give the order to the commander of the plaza to cut off the heads of all the prisoners that were taken with arms in their hands. They will be transported tonight to the bank of the Nile between Bulaq and Old Cairo; their headless cadavers will be thrown in the river."
Those orders are quoted in Juan Cole's "Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East," a new book that could be subtitled "Bush's Iraq." In the end, which came in 1801, the French were driven from Egypt, though Napoleon, as usual, claimed victory. He also ordered the burning of all the records of the occupation that could be found.
In our time, burning has been replaced by shredding, deletion and classification. But somehow, orders, letters and memos remain stubborn things. The latest Bush administration memo to be declassified — under a Freedom of Information Act filing by the American Civil Liberties Union — is a 2003 Justice Department memo titled "Military Interrogation of Alien Unlawful Combatants Held Outside the United States." The document's 81 pages comprise one of a series of opinions from 2002 to 2005 — this one was written by John C. Yoo of the Office of Legal Counsel — throwing a thin legal veil over torture by Americans working secretly around the world. It also pretty much shreds the Constitution and its ideas of balanced powers between the three branches of the United States government.
This one states:
"There can be little doubt that the conduct of war is a matter that is fundamentally executive in nature, the power over which the Framers vested in a unitary executive. ... (W)e address whether restraints imposed by the Bill of Rights govern the interrogation of alien enemy combatants during armed conflict. Two constitutional provisions that might be thought to extend to interrogations — the Fifth and Eighth Amendments — do not apply here. The Fifth Amendment provides in relevant part that '(n)o person ... shall be deprived of his life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.' ... The Eighth Amendment bars the 'inflict(ion)' of 'cruel and unusual punishments.' These provisions, however, do not regulate the interrogation of alien enemy combatants outside the United States during an international armed conflict."
The memo continues: "In contrast to the domestic realm, foreign affairs and war clearly place the President in the dominant constitutional position due to his authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive and his plenary control over diplomatic relations."
Leaving aside the fact that the cowardice of Congress is such that the United States has not declared a war in the past 67 years, the memos could describe the workings of an authoritarian government operating outside its own laws. It is a sad comment on the breakdown of democratic government that the words and symbols that will be remembered about America's role in the world today may not be "9/11" or even "terrorism," but "torture" ... "Abu Ghraib" ... "Guantanamo."
The invasion of Iraq may have been, to be charitable, a mistake, but the words in these memos are evil — and stupid.
Do people never learn? The most prominent American witness on torture is obviously Sen. John McCain and, ironically, his hard-earned words as a victim mirror those of the torturer Napoleon. Said McCain:
"We should not torture or treat inhumanely terrorists we have captured. ... In my experience, abuse of prisoners often produces bad intelligence because under torture a person will say anything he thinks his captors want to hear — whether it is true or false — if he believes it will relieve his suffering. I was once physically coerced to provide my enemies with the names of the members of my flight squadron, information that had little if any value to my enemies as actionable intelligence. ... I gave them the names of the Green Bay Packers' offensive line."
Read entire article at http://www.richardreeves.com
The commander in chief, and that was the title he preferred then, was Napoleon Bonaparte, leader of the French invasion and occupation of Egypt in 1798. The torture order was dated Nov. 11, 1799. Napoleon, a mass murderer by any standard, was quite specific in his thinking: He was not against torture as punishment; he was prohibiting it only as an intelligence technique.
In fact, 19 days before, on Oct. 23, 1799, he had issued this order regarding 2,000 insurgents captured during an insurgency against the French occupiers: "Please give the order to the commander of the plaza to cut off the heads of all the prisoners that were taken with arms in their hands. They will be transported tonight to the bank of the Nile between Bulaq and Old Cairo; their headless cadavers will be thrown in the river."
Those orders are quoted in Juan Cole's "Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East," a new book that could be subtitled "Bush's Iraq." In the end, which came in 1801, the French were driven from Egypt, though Napoleon, as usual, claimed victory. He also ordered the burning of all the records of the occupation that could be found.
In our time, burning has been replaced by shredding, deletion and classification. But somehow, orders, letters and memos remain stubborn things. The latest Bush administration memo to be declassified — under a Freedom of Information Act filing by the American Civil Liberties Union — is a 2003 Justice Department memo titled "Military Interrogation of Alien Unlawful Combatants Held Outside the United States." The document's 81 pages comprise one of a series of opinions from 2002 to 2005 — this one was written by John C. Yoo of the Office of Legal Counsel — throwing a thin legal veil over torture by Americans working secretly around the world. It also pretty much shreds the Constitution and its ideas of balanced powers between the three branches of the United States government.
This one states:
"There can be little doubt that the conduct of war is a matter that is fundamentally executive in nature, the power over which the Framers vested in a unitary executive. ... (W)e address whether restraints imposed by the Bill of Rights govern the interrogation of alien enemy combatants during armed conflict. Two constitutional provisions that might be thought to extend to interrogations — the Fifth and Eighth Amendments — do not apply here. The Fifth Amendment provides in relevant part that '(n)o person ... shall be deprived of his life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.' ... The Eighth Amendment bars the 'inflict(ion)' of 'cruel and unusual punishments.' These provisions, however, do not regulate the interrogation of alien enemy combatants outside the United States during an international armed conflict."
The memo continues: "In contrast to the domestic realm, foreign affairs and war clearly place the President in the dominant constitutional position due to his authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive and his plenary control over diplomatic relations."
Leaving aside the fact that the cowardice of Congress is such that the United States has not declared a war in the past 67 years, the memos could describe the workings of an authoritarian government operating outside its own laws. It is a sad comment on the breakdown of democratic government that the words and symbols that will be remembered about America's role in the world today may not be "9/11" or even "terrorism," but "torture" ... "Abu Ghraib" ... "Guantanamo."
The invasion of Iraq may have been, to be charitable, a mistake, but the words in these memos are evil — and stupid.
Do people never learn? The most prominent American witness on torture is obviously Sen. John McCain and, ironically, his hard-earned words as a victim mirror those of the torturer Napoleon. Said McCain:
"We should not torture or treat inhumanely terrorists we have captured. ... In my experience, abuse of prisoners often produces bad intelligence because under torture a person will say anything he thinks his captors want to hear — whether it is true or false — if he believes it will relieve his suffering. I was once physically coerced to provide my enemies with the names of the members of my flight squadron, information that had little if any value to my enemies as actionable intelligence. ... I gave them the names of the Green Bay Packers' offensive line."