Opinion:

Obama administration blocks lawsuits of torture victims

By Daya Gamage

“Even before I came into office I was very clear that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 we did some things that were wrong. We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values,” said President Obama at a media briefing at the White House on August 1.

He then declared: “I understand why it happened. I think it’s important when we look back to recall how afraid people were after the Twin Towers fell and the Pentagon had been hit and the plane in Pennsylvania had fallen and people did not know whether more attacks were imminent and there was enormous pressure on our law enforcement and our national security teams to try to deal with this. And it’s important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had. And a lot of those folks were working hard under enormous pressure and are real patriots.”

Interrogation

Then he confessed: “And my hope is, is that this report (The US Senate Intelligence Committee report that scrutinized and probed torture of terrorist suspects during Bush presidency yet to be released) reminds us once again that the character of our country has to be measured in part not by what we do when things are easy, but what we do when things are hard.

And when we engaged in some of these enhanced interrogation techniques, techniques that I believe and I think any fair-minded person would believe were torture, we crossed a line. And that needs to be - that needs to be understood and accepted. And we have to, as a country, take responsibility for that so that, hopefully, we don't do it again in the future.”

That long overdue moment of candor by the President of the United States is remarkable not for what it reveals but for what it foreshadows.

Illegal

Anyone with the courage to want to know, has known for over a decade that the US, particularly under the administration of George W. Bush, was engaged in a widespread, multinational, highly coordinated campaign of illegal detentions, kidnappings, abuses and calculated acts of unspeakable torture and murder.

There are a couple of determinations that can be drawn from his address to the media that day at the White House:

(a) He opposed the ‘Enhanced Interrogation Techniques’ - simply known as ‘Torture’ - during his first campaign for the presidency executed during Bush-Chaney-Rumsfeld regime of 2001-08 and that his first Executive Order was to stop the practice.

(b) The President of the United States reiterated that the US intelligence apparatus engaged in torturing ‘enemy combatants’ who were under its custody, a notion former vice president Dick Chaney constantly denied that ‘enhanced interrogation method’ was torture.

(c) In some way justifying the enhanced interrogation techniques – torture as Obama says - the president was reminding the nation and the wider world that in the aftermath of 9/11 it was a very difficult time people faced that threatened national security and he was aware “the tough job that those folks had” during the attacks on national security and that “a lot of those folks were working hard under enormous pressure” to safeguard the homeland.

(d) the folks (in the US national intelligence apparatus) who were using enhanced interrogation methods - torture as Obama describes - “under enormous pressure” - “are real patriots”.

(e) and “no look-backs” policy his administration has taken all along on the issue meaning No Accountability.

Pressure

One media squib noted, “But there’s a severe moral danger in how the President explained this (August 1 media briefing). By invoking “how afraid people were after the Twin Towers fell and the Pentagon had been hit and the plane in Pennsylvania had fallen, and people did not know whether more attacks were imminent, and there was enormous pressure on our law enforcement and our national security teams to try to deal with this,” he is describing the same excuses that have always attended atrocities and ratifying their future use.

Obama, a couple of days before he took oath of office signaled in an interview with ABC Network that he was unlikely to authorize a broad inquiry into Bush administration programs like domestic eavesdropping or the treatment of terrorism suspects.

Obama added that he also had “a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”

“And part of my job,” he continued, “is to make sure that, for example, at the C.I.A., you’ve got extraordinarily talented people who are working very hard to keep Americans safe. I don’t want them to suddenly feel like they’ve got spend their all their time looking over their shoulders.”

Blocked lawsuits

“Accountability,” however, has been elusive. From the beginning, Obama himself ruled out investigations into interrogators who had followed the Bush Justice Department’s legal advice about which torture techniques were permissible. A Justice Department inquiry into interrogators who went beyond the ‘legal’ torture limits outlined by the Bush administration ended with no prosecutions. The Obama administration has blocked lawsuits by detainees who alleged they were tortured through state secrecy and immunity doctrines. An internal Justice Department ethics review of the attorneys who gave legal cover to ‘enhanced interrogation’ was watered down by a top Justice Department official, overruling the finding that they had engaged in misconduct.

“The president has taken a ‘let’s look forward, not backward’ approach to this issue, that is not sufficient, we’re talking about torture,” said Raha Wala, an attorney with Human Rights First.

The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (United Nations Convention against Torture) is an international human rights instrument, under the review of the United Nations, that aims to prevent torture and cruel, inhuman degrading treatment or punishment around the world.

The Convention requires states to take effective measures to prevent torture within their borders, and forbids states to transport people to any country where there is reason to believe they will be tortured.

The text of the Convention was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1984.

Courtesy: Asian Tribune