Administration Invokes Nuremberg Defense

 

On April 16, the Department of Justice released a series of four Bush administration memoranda issued by the Office of Legal Counsel concerning the legality of “coercive interrogation” (read: torture) but effectively pardoned government officials from accountability for past actions. President Obama announced that the government would not prosecute CIA officers who engaged in illegal behavior because the Bush administration had claimed it to be legal.

Included in these memos is acknowledgement of the application of Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (“SERE”) techniques and the involvement of CIA psychologists in interrogations.  SERE techniques were designed during the Cold War to train US soldiers in resisting Soviet interrogation techniques.  These techniques were then reverse engineered for use in devising American interrogation procedures used in the War on Terror.   Documents show that the use of “cramped confinement,” “stress positions,” “sleep deprivation,” “insects placed in a confinement box,” and “the waterboard” were authorized techniques.  The documents attempt to draw an artificial and subjective line between “pain” and “suffering,” defining torture as an act that causes “severe pain” and note that sleep deprivation is therefore not torture.  Disturbingly, the documents further show the complicit nature of mental health experts in these interrogations as well as the creation of the techniques.

No proof that these interrogations brought about usable intelligence has ever been provided by government officials.

We already knew all that.  The real story is in how President Obama has chosen to follow up on these activities which several former administration officials, and most scholars, have called torture.   Obama commented that “this is a time for reflection, not retribution.”  According to the administration, the CIA officials who committed these crimes were acting on legal advice from their superiors that authorized their behavior. 

However, that was not a valid defense at Nuremburg nor should it be one now.  It is because of Nuremburg that the Uniform Code of Military Justice states that only the “lawful” orders of superiors must be obeyed.  The government recognizes that its employees can make moral decisions in the face of corrupt orders.  Such actions to excuse the failure to make a moral choice are not new and were also used to excuse soldiers for their behavior at My Lai and, more recently, Abu Ghraib.

Transparency is important – but it must be joined with accountability by holding individuals responsible for their actions.

Image by flickr user takomabiblelot used under a creative commons liscence.

(Roger Strother 04/16/09)

Comments

How could the judge allow the

How could the judge allow the defendant to assume this defense? I think that is an act of misconduct on his (or her) part.

Whatever his reasons may be,

Whatever his reasons may be, Prez Obama seems to be continuing many of ex-Prez Bush's policies - more money for Wall Street, economic stimulus, rescue of auto manufacturers, more soldiers for Afghanistan and Iraq, etc. Right now, about his only original policy seems to be health care reform, and that seems to be in serious danger of failing miserably. It really looks like he is tossing every other issue aside in order to concentrate on this one thing.

Personally, I don't believe

Personally, I don't believe in torture. It is plain human evilness to do it. I don't know these torturers can ever dream peacefully.

I can't believe these torture

I can't believe these torture tactics are still used. Incredibly inhumane. The military was on a power trip and the Bush administration turned a blind eye.

I agree that that is a

I agree that that is a horrible defense to use... I don't see how anyone could agree with it.

It is not exactly fair to

It is not exactly fair to compare the Bush administration with the Nazi government, I don't think they are really comparable. Bush is no angel, but he is no racist, only incompetent in various ways.

No proof that these

No proof that these interrogations brought about usable intelligence has ever been provided by government officials

There's no way anyone truly

There's no way anyone truly thought this was legal. Also, the first sentence you quote was a paraphrse of the administration's stance not my own position. These procedures were banned under Geneva - a treaty that was ratified by the US government and thus US law. OLC interpretations stood on very shaky grounds of vague definitions of what "severe pain" included.

  The CIA officials who

The CIA officials who committed these crimes were acting on legal advice from their superiors that authorized their behavior. 

However, that was not a valid defense at Nuremburg nor should it be one now.  It is because of Nuremburg that the Uniform Code of Military Justice states that only the “lawful” orders of superiors must be obeyed.

The logic doesn't fit here.  CIA officials believed, because of the Bush torture memos, that what they were doing was legal, that is to say lawful.  So, they were acting according to UCMJ.

This is not to excuse their actions -- they were torturing detainees -- but they believed they had the legal authority to do so.  An epic moral lapse to be sure, but acting legally?  They at least thought they were.

 

 

 

I disagree - there's no way

I disagree - there's no way anyone truly thought this was legal.  Also, the first sentence you quote was a paraphrse of the administration's stance not my own position.

These procedures were banned under Geneva - a treaty that was ratified by the US government and thus US law.  OLC interpretations stood on very shaky grounds of vague definitions of what "severe pain" included.  I believe that policy makers at the top are liable for attempting to circumvent Geneva by debating nuances of definition, but so too are the military and intelligence personnel who acted on these interpretations after receiving training on Geneva requirements. Geneva is one of the first things covered as part of interrogation training.  The choice to go against that training is theirs to make.

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