Green Party Says The Torturers Should Be Prosecuted

There can be no debate anymore. The United States government did use torture methods in a failed attempt to get information. It was done both by CIA interrogators, and by outsourcing the torture to other countries -- and it was approved and directed from the highest level of our government, the White House. The Green Party says the U.S. guilt is continuing, because we have failed to prosecute those who authorized the torture and those who carried out that torture. I agree with them.

Here is an article on the subject written by Green Party Shadow Cabinet member Kevin Zeese on December 11th. It worth reading.

The United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s report on torture has finally been made public. After months of negotiation with the White House and CIA, the senate released a heavily redacted report with the names of torturers and torture enablers redacted.

The nearly 500 page redacted summary of a much larger 6,000 page report documented that the torture used by the United States was much more brutal than had been previously acknowledged. In addition, it was much less effective at uncovering terrorist plots or preventing acts of terrorism. For example, claims that torture was a key to finding Osama Bin Laden turned out to be a lie put out by the CIA. Torture resulted in torture victims repeatedly making up false information to justify their violation of the law. The CIA lied to the media, public and Congress. The number of people subjected to torture was 119 and at least 26 of the prisoners, about 21%, should never have been arrested but some of these victims were held for months before being released.

The New York Times, which summarized seven key findings of the report, editorialized that the “report raises again, with renewed power, the question of why no one has ever been held accountable for these seeming crimes — not the top officials who set them in motion, the lower-level officials who committed the torture, or those who covered it up, including by destroying videotapes of the abuse and by trying to block the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation of their acts.” The Times pointed the finger at President Barak Obama for the decision not to prosecute anyone for torture which violated US and international law, writing:

“The litany of brutality, lawlessness and lack of accountability serves as a reminder of what a horrible decision President Obama made at the outset of his administration to close the books on this chapter in our history, even as he repudiated the use of torture. The C.I.A. officials who destroyed videotapes of waterboarding were left unpunished, and all attempts at bringing these acts into a courtroom were blocked by claims of national secrets.”

We agree with The New York Times, people should be held accountable for these crimes and that is why we are publishing the statement of the UN Special Rapporteur responsible for torture in full. A summary from The Guardian on some of the most egregious examples in the report including: rectal feeding of meals put in a blender and forced into the rectum of victims, rectal dehydration, forcing people to stand on broken limbs for a lengthy time, forced nudity, threats of raping the mothers of victims and kidnapping their children. Prisoners were held in what the head of interrogations for the CIA called “the dudgeon” where prisoners were kept in complete darkness, shackled to the walls with only a bucket for human waste. Prisoners would have their clothes cut off, be tied up with tape, screamed at and dragged down a hallway while being hit and kicked by other officers.

One prisoners, Gul Rahman was subjected to “48 hours of sleep deprivation, auditory overload, total darkness, isolation, a cold shower and rough treatment.” He was “shackled to the wall of his cell in a position that required the detainee to rest on the bare concrete floor.” He was found dead 48 hours later from hypothermia. Another prisoner was held in the dungeon, shackled to a wall for 17 days before being checked on by CIA torturers. Another was forced to spend 22 hours each day with one or both wrists chained to an overhead bar, for two consecutive days, while wearing a diaper. His incarceration was concealed from the International Committee of the Red Cross. Sleep deprivation could last as long as 180 hours as part of the torture program. Prisoners cowered when the door to their cell was open in fear of the torturers.

As the UN Special Rapporteur on counter terrorism and human rights, Ben Emmerson wrote that accountability is required for these crimes:

“The individuals responsible for the criminal conspiracy revealed in today’s report must be brought to justice, and must face criminal penalties commensurate with the gravity of their crimes. The fact that the policies revealed in this report were authorized at a high level within the US government provides no excuse whatsoever. Indeed, it reinforces the need for criminal accountability.”

Indeed, the redacted summary of the senate report describes horrific, macabre crimes. People need to be held accountable for these abuses from the lowest CIA agent who carried them out to the president of the United States who admitted torture in his presidential biography as well as the lawyers at the CIA and Department of Justice that provided legal cover for the torture program. 

The first step President Obama should take is to immediately pardon John Kiriakou who exposed the torture program, who is the only person who has been imprisoned regarding the torture program.

Kiriakou said 

“I believe I was prosecuted not for what I did but for who I am: a CIA officer who said torture was wrong and ineffective and went against the grain.”

Kiriakou remains imprisoned; President Obama can immediately change that and pardon him. Every day he is imprisoned compounds the crime committed against him by the US government.

President Obama needs to direct the attorney general to investigate and prosecute everyone involved in the torture program. He is required to do so under international law, but sadly in his first statement since the report was released the president has said there will be no further investigation or prosecution. Obama used the rhetoric that we are a nation of laws that lives by the rule of law, but when it comes to torture he has not lived up to that rhetoric. 

While Kiriakou remains imprisoned, Obama is saying that torture “should remain in the past.” Obama described the torture as “horrific” but used the language of American exceptionalism to justify ignoring the law saying:

“one of the strengths that makes America exceptional is our willingness to openly confront our past, face our imperfections, make changes and do better.”

The doubletalk of the president on the issue of torture is a grave error and a continuation of the injustice of the torture program.

President Obama is now violating the law by not prosecuting the people involved in the torture progam.

As the UN special rapporteur wrote: “States are not free to maintain or permit impunity for these grave crimes.” The Obama administration has a legal responsibility to enforce the law and prosecute those involved in torture from former President Bush and former Vice President Cheney to the lawyers who justified it and those who ordered it and carried torture out.  

The chapter on torture is not complete. Indeed, there is a long history of US torture going back for decades, indeed to the treatment of the indigenous peoples of North America. The government and the people of the United States have still not faced the reality of the behavior of the US government and the failure to prosecute ensures that we will not do so. The crime of torture is one of universal jurisdiction, any government can bring charges.  The US will not enforce the law against itself, I suspect foreign governments in the end will do so.

Read the full report here.