Hussain writes: "In a detailed report titled 'No More Excuses: A Roadmap to
Justice for CIA Torture,' Human Rights Watch identifies a legal basis for
prosecution of government officials and calls on the U.S. Attorney Generals
office to appoint a special prosecutor to conduct criminal investigations
into those responsible for post-9/11 torture."
Prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center. (photo: Everett
Collection/REX)
"No More Excuses" for Not Prosecuting Government Officials on Torture
By Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept
02 December 15
Nearly a year after the release of the summary of the Senate Intelligence
Committee report on CIA torture, a major human rights group is calling for
the immediate prosecution of U.S. government officials responsible for
authorizing and carrying out the abuses.
In a detailed report titled No More Excuses: A Roadmap to Justice for CIA
Torture, Human Rights Watch identifies a legal basis for prosecution of
government officials and calls on the U.S. Attorney Generals office to
appoint a special prosecutor to conduct criminal investigations into those
responsible for post-9/11 torture. The report also calls for the release of
the full text of the Senate report, which remains classified.
Among those the report calls on to be criminally investigated for their
roles in authorizing torture are some of the leading figures of the George
W. Bush administration, including former CIA Director George Tenet, Vice
President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Bush
himself.
Nobody should be above the law, and there needs to be credible criminal
investigations against both those who authorized and carried out abuses
against detainees that amounted to a conspiracy to commit torture, Laura
Pitter, senior national security counsel at Human Rights watch and co-author
of the report, told The Intercept on Tuesday. Although the names of many of
those who actually tortured detainees remain unknown to the public, they are
not unknown to the CIA and Department of Justice, Pitter added. Theres no
reason for the public to be kept in the dark about the worst of these abuses
and who committed them. We need to see prosecutions at all levels of the
torture program, including those who actually carried out torture.
The 153-page report recounts in oft-excruciating detail the types of abuses
that detainees suffered while in CIA custody, including detainees with
broken feet being forced to stand and walk on their injured legs for days
while being subjected to standing sleep deprivation, sexual abuse including
rectal feeding, and the frequent use of water-dousing, a form of torture
described as virtually indistinguishable from waterboarding.
Such abuses, which the Senate report investigated, represented those that
went beyond the forms of torture that had been authorized by Bush
administration officials. But Pitter said the torture tactics that were
expressly validated by Bush administration lawyers need to be criminally
investigated as well.
The Bush administration concocted spurious legal rationales for its torture
policies, such as the claim that high-ranking officials could be excused
from legal liability because of the necessity of torture, Pitter said.
These were later removed because they had no basis in the law, but not
before they were used to justify acts that were clearly criminal despite
being nominally authorized.'
Like the Senate report, No More Excuses limits itself to abuses related to
the CIA detention program. During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
wide-ranging human rights abuses are also documented to have been carried
out by members of the military alongside civilian contractors, including
unauthorized practices such as rape and murder. Despite this bracketing of
focus, a decision Pitter said was taken for the sake of practicality, the
report nonetheless shows how abuses first authorized for the CIA program
ended up influencing detention practices in military facilities abroad,
particularly through the efforts of former Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who served
as a commander at Guantánamo and later went on to propose interrogation
guidelines for use by forces in Iraq.
Citing political obstacles and a maxim of looking forward, not backwards,
the Obama administration has not criminally prosecuted those responsible for
torture and other human rights abuses during the Bush era. Despite this
refusal, the United States remains a party to the United Nations Convention
on Torture, a treaty ratified under U.S. law that imposes a legal
requirement to prosecute government officials responsible for the torture
program.
Referring to this treaty and calling on Obama to act in accordance with it,
the Human Rights Watch report also puts on notice a number of other
countries around the world specifically European Union nations and Canada
where grounds exist to pursue criminal cases against the former U.S.
government officials responsible for the program should the U.S. government
fail to act.
Above all, Pitter said, it is important that there be some form of criminal
responsibility for torture in order to solidify the international consensus
against it. Not prosecuting individuals responsible for torture is really
dangerous, she said. The U.S. was instrumental in drafting the United
Nations Convention Against Torture, and brazenly ignoring its own treaty
obligations provides a ready excuse for other countries to begin ignoring
them as well.
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Prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center. (photo: Everett
Collection/REX)
https://theintercept.com/2015/12/01/no-more-excuses-for-not-prosecuting-gove
rnment-officials-for-torture/https://theintercept.com/2015/12/01/no-more-exc
uses-for-not-prosecuting-government-officials-for-torture/
"No More Excuses" for Not Prosecuting Government Officials on Torture
By Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept
02 December 15
early a year after the release of the summary of the Senate Intelligence
Committee report on CIA torture, a major human rights group is calling for
the immediate prosecution of U.S. government officials responsible for
authorizing and carrying out the abuses.
In a detailed report titled No More Excuses: A Roadmap to Justice for CIA
Torture, Human Rights Watch identifies a legal basis for prosecution of
government officials and calls on the U.S. Attorney Generals office to
appoint a special prosecutor to conduct criminal investigations into those
responsible for post-9/11 torture. The report also calls for the release of
the full text of the Senate report, which remains classified.
Among those the report calls on to be criminally investigated for their
roles in authorizing torture are some of the leading figures of the George
W. Bush administration, including former CIA Director George Tenet, Vice
President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Bush
himself.
Nobody should be above the law, and there needs to be credible criminal
investigations against both those who authorized and carried out abuses
against detainees that amounted to a conspiracy to commit torture, Laura
Pitter, senior national security counsel at Human Rights watch and co-author
of the report, told The Intercept on Tuesday. Although the names of many of
those who actually tortured detainees remain unknown to the public, they are
not unknown to the CIA and Department of Justice, Pitter added. Theres no
reason for the public to be kept in the dark about the worst of these abuses
and who committed them. We need to see prosecutions at all levels of the
torture program, including those who actually carried out torture.
The 153-page report recounts in oft-excruciating detail the types of abuses
that detainees suffered while in CIA custody, including detainees with
broken feet being forced to stand and walk on their injured legs for days
while being subjected to standing sleep deprivation, sexual abuse including
rectal feeding, and the frequent use of water-dousing, a form of torture
described as virtually indistinguishable from waterboarding.
Such abuses, which the Senate report investigated, represented those that
went beyond the forms of torture that had been authorized by Bush
administration officials. But Pitter said the torture tactics that were
expressly validated by Bush administration lawyers need to be criminally
investigated as well.
The Bush administration concocted spurious legal rationales for its torture
policies, such as the claim that high-ranking officials could be excused
from legal liability because of the necessity of torture, Pitter said.
These were later removed because they had no basis in the law, but not
before they were used to justify acts that were clearly criminal despite
being nominally authorized.'
Like the Senate report, No More Excuses limits itself to abuses related to
the CIA detention program. During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
wide-ranging human rights abuses are also documented to have been carried
out by members of the military alongside civilian contractors, including
unauthorized practices such as rape and murder. Despite this bracketing of
focus, a decision Pitter said was taken for the sake of practicality, the
report nonetheless shows how abuses first authorized for the CIA program
ended up influencing detention practices in military facilities abroad,
particularly through the efforts of former Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who served
as a commander at Guantánamo and later went on to propose interrogation
guidelines for use by forces in Iraq.
Citing political obstacles and a maxim of looking forward, not backwards,
the Obama administration has not criminally prosecuted those responsible for
torture and other human rights abuses during the Bush era. Despite this
refusal, the United States remains a party to the United Nations Convention
on Torture, a treaty ratified under U.S. law that imposes a legal
requirement to prosecute government officials responsible for the torture
program.
Referring to this treaty and calling on Obama to act in accordance with it,
the Human Rights Watch report also puts on notice a number of other
countries around the world specifically European Union nations and Canada
where grounds exist to pursue criminal cases against the former U.S.
government officials responsible for the program should the U.S. government
fail to act.
Above all, Pitter said, it is important that there be some form of criminal
responsibility for torture in order to solidify the international consensus
against it. Not prosecuting individuals responsible for torture is really
dangerous, she said. The U.S. was instrumental in drafting the United
Nations Convention Against Torture, and brazenly ignoring its own treaty
obligations provides a ready excuse for other countries to begin ignoring
them as well.
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http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
