Torture: What Part of 'Do Not Repay Evil for Evil' Don't You Understand?

I don't disagree with you.

But you have to admit, it's awfully hard to blame the soldiers who were following orders. Sure, there is blame to be placed, but where should that blame ultimately be placed?

A Spanish court has announced its intention to indict 6 former Bush administration officials for war crimes related to their legal activities in redefining the definition of torture and paving the way for war crimes to be committed by others:

1. former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
2. John Yoo, the Justice Department attorney who authored the infamous "torture memo"
3. Jay Bybee, Yoo's superior at the Office of Legal Counsel, also involved in the creation of torture memos -- and now a Federal Judge
4. David Addington, Dick Cheney's chief of staff and legal adviser
5. Douglas Feith, the former undersecretary of defense for policy
6. William Haynes, the legal counsel at the DoD

I'm not sure why George W. Bush, Richard B. Cheney and Donald R. Rumsfeld are not on this list, but at least something is being done about these outrageous criminal acts committed in our name and without our permission. The embarrassment is that a Spanish court had to take the first step towards bringing these criminals to justice.
Right after the Abu Ghraib torture scandal erupted, during Rumsfeld's tenure as Secretary of Defense, several National Guard personnel with absolutely no training in methods of interrogation were scapegoated in a military court for acts of torture committed at Abu Ghraib prison. It appears the Bush administration expected this would be the end of the outrage.
Well it's not the end of the outrage.

I'm ashamed that Obama's Justice Department is not taking the lead in prosecuting those responsible for war crimes committed by Americans in the name of America.
It's not enough to say the Obama administration wants to avoid spending time and energy 'looking backward' so that we can 'look forward'.
I understand Obama's unwillingness to make the actual torturers into scapegoats, but those folks should have known they were committing crimes, even though they may have been under orders.
Perhaps Obama's DOJ is expecting the actual torturers to lead the investigation up the chain of command to those who did give the orders to torture.
If the Obama administration doesn't take action, they inherit responsibility for the war crimes.

The fish rots from the head down.

Placing one's faith in the CIA, military, or anyone other than God for one's security is akin to what Solomon did with his wives. It is, of course, very wrong and shows a lack of faith.

Now, as to whether God would want us to have a powerful military, cunning CIA, etc., well that would be a whole other question altogether. FWIW, Christianity Today had a series of articles on this topic. First was the article reminding us that even terrorists are human, and made in the image of God. Therefore, they deserve human rights that they so wantonly don't want for others. Second was the article on how "the law is king" is superior to "the king is law" and the proper role of rulers in a state.

Those people who ordered these acts of torture need to be brought to justice and held accountable for their crimes.

A memo is not a law ratified by due process and tested by the Federal courts. It is simply the legal opinion of a lawyer hired by the executive branch. The Military leaders who make policy are sworn to uphold the the law as it exists and to defend the Constitution. They have access to their own lawyers and there were many military lawyers who challenged these criminal propositions. Though it is harder to blame soldiers who are following orders, no soldier is bound to break laws in order to obey orders. This is not the 3rd reich. The laws are clear and have never been overturned.

I do agree that the weight of the law should not fall on the soldiers but the lawyers who sought to justify breaking it as though they were above the constitution and on those political leaders who solicited and then acted on these phony legal opinions. It should also fall on the top military brass who carried out the violation of law and betrayed the constitution for promotion and political approval.

To "absolutely defend those who relied on these memos" sounds like the fundamental defense of the 3rd Reich that"I was only following orders". Torture is a crime and was a legal crime while it was being practiced by US soldiers, CIA agents and private mercenary intelligence operatives. Torture is as serious and horrific crime as can be imagined and the abhorrent mark of the very worst examples of every dictator and every abusive monarch, pope, mullah, despot and empire in history.

This bizarre position of saying these things are behind us is the most ludicrous, pathetic, and and lawless position to take on a crime of violence. It is not applied to any other criminals. All crimes that were ever addressed by a court of law were "behind us". Should we disband courts because they only deal with crimes that are behind us? Should we let the murderers and thieves out of jail, since those crimes are behind us?

Kudos to Ryan for consistently taking strong and clearly stated moral positions on critical issues.

If you are to be consistent, wouldn't your response to the torturers be one of non-violence instead of calling for their punishment.

It's a bit problematic to jump from the Sermon on the Mount to prescriptions for national security. To do so, one has to assume that the ethical constraints for nations and individuals are the same (or at least very similar).

To arrest violent criminals and remove them from from society after due legal process, in order to protect society from violence and to deter further violence is not a perfect solution to this problem. But it is fairly widely accepted and it is part of our system of law. I know very few pacifists who entirely reject a system of law enforcement, though there are several societies that have less violent crime than the US and less incarceration.

To be a pacifist is not to embrace lawlessness. It is to seek the most peaceful and just means possible to enforce civil behavior.

How are the ethical restraints so different for nations?
The core idea here is that we cannot change our standards of law or our ethical standards because others act without ethical restraint. To uphold the law and protect society from lawlessness we must ourselves live by our own laws and enforce them equally . To do otherwise is to create a class of people who are above the law, and what could be a greater threat to security and liberty than that?

It is not that we have a class of citizens who are above the law, but rather that we have a class of citizens who are the law.

Actually, the Spanish Attorney General and the Chief Prosecutor have recommended that the court not pursue the case. As a consequence, the case is not likely to go forward.

Basically what happened is some Spanish crank filed a criminal complaint and a judge refused to throw it out immediately. But without the support of the (Socialist) Spanish government, the case will stall. As it should. Torture, under even the broadest definition, was an isolated occurrence, not general administration policy.

Have a nice day.

LV

How about a reference to your claim, LV?
And what is your position vis a vis prosecution of torturers, torture lawyers and those at the top of the chain of command?

Yes, but how exactly do you propose to remove criminals from society without the use, or at least the threat, of violence?

LV

NYT update on legal action proposed by the Spanish National Court:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/world/europe/...

...the decision on whether to begin a criminal investigation of the six officials will be made by an investigating judge. In this case, that is likely to be Baltasar Garzón, who has ignored opinions of politicians and law enforcement officials before. Spain's best-known judge, he gained international fame by achieving the arrest of the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in London in 1998.

Lawyers in Madrid said that a new complaint was being prepared on behalf of five former Guantánamo detainees who are either citizens or residents of Spain, a move that would likely provide a new twist in the proceedings.

This NYT story is at odds with your claim and isn't going to go away, as you hoped it would, LV.

Spanish crank?
hogwash

Isolated occurrence?
double hogwash

Have a nice day yourself, LV.

That's what the Spanish newspaper El Pais is reporting. But what would a Spanish paper know about a legal process in Spain?

As a general rule, I support the prosecution of torturers. I am opposed to witch-hunts however, and this looks more like one of those.

LV

Torture was policy; that has been made clear. Your contradiction flies in the face of a great deal of actual evidence, It is my understanding that the judge involved is the judge who brought Pinochet to trial, so you may be wrong also about the progress of this case.

Like I said, that's what the Spanish papers are reporting. Garzon can order an investigation, that's not the same as ordering an arrest or reaching a verdict.

The Spanish government's reaction to Garzon's order is likely to be "go suck an egg" or whatever the equivalent would be in Spanish. They went through that circus with Pinochet, only to have him return to Chile.

What makes you think anything different will happen here? Barack Obama has sworn off prosecutions here, and much as I disagreee with him I doubt he'll play along with a Spanish prosecution. They won't want a rerun of the whole Pinochet business while cheesing off the US.

Spanish crank. Grandstanding judge. Political idiocy. Legal morass. All full of sound and fury, signifying not much. Someone will eventually file an appeal. The government will stand aside. A higher court will squelch the whole thing. The End.

LV

You wish, LV.
I wouldn't count on it, though.

What makes it a witch hunt? The Red Cross, AI, Human Rights Watch, The New Yorker, have all published very strong and detailed statements alleging widespread criminal abuse of prisoners. The Navy and FBI reported many instances of torture including prisoners beaten to death. The fact that you voted for the people that initiated these policies does not constitute evidence that they are innocent of serious crimes.

If you think my opinions have a political base, you are completely mistaken. I believe the continuation of extraordinary rendition by the Obama administration is equally unconstitutional and criminal.

A common tactic is to resort to name calling when there is nothing that can be brought up to dispute the substance, as LV has so aptly demonstrated here.

The policy of waterboarding and such was a policy that was a mistake . Wrong , UnAmerican in my opinion.
The witch hunt based on political payback with torture as reasoning is also seen by some the comments below . Repaying evil for evil is wrong as Ryan points out . But some see the recent Shooting of three Pirates to save the life of the American Captain as something that needed and should have been done . I am one of those I guess. Waterboarding is torture , but from what i understand its the fear and sensation of drowning . Being told that a person has information that is needed to save perhaps thousands of lives and given affirmations by your superiors to get information appears to be left out of the total picture here . The policy was wrong , the goal was to save lives .

The fringe lefts Bush Syndrome needs to stop compromising our present Presidents ability to move our country forward.
Ryan is out of focus and even perhaps hurting the present President's new positive approach of doing things in regards to the treatment of POWs. Or whatever we call terrosists or perceived terrorists.

Time to move on . We are moving on with out you anyway.

If we are not going to prosecute CIA agents who engaged in torture, because George Bush's lawyers told them it was "legal," then why are the soldiers (the lowest on the military/governmental totem pole) who carried out the scandalous torture at Abu Graeb in prison for those acts??????? Am I alone in thinking that there's a double standard being used here???? It would seem logical that the soldiers would be pardoned and that all upper echelons of this disgraceful American behavior be held accountable?