First, I’d like to direct readers to Roy Jurgens new blog, Harbinger Of Doom. As always, Roy’s writing is excellent and it’s a blog that’s certainly worth bookmarking, maybe even more so than this one.

A few days ago, Dimitri Vassilaros of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review wrote something regarding Remembrance Day that I found very poignant. An excerpt…

“When remembering the brave Americans on Tuesday who served this republic — especially those who made the ultimate sacrifice — remember the people who put them in harm’s way.

Veterans Day, which was known as Armistice Day until 1954, honors American veterans of all wars on Nov. 11.

What many of them experienced doing their duty is almost incomprehensible. Sing their praises to the heavens. Shower them with all the glory they so richly deserve. Thank God so many put their lives on the line to help make this the greatest nation in history. But after the parade bands stop marching, the bunting is decommissioned and the bystanders stop waving those little American flags, consider why so many have been wounded or lost — and if anything can be done to lessen the need for more rehab hospitals and national cemeteries.

The public should ask itself if it’s ever done a disservice to its service men and women when expedience trumped the U.S. Constitution. And if so, how many in our military paid — and how dearly.

Congress has formally declared war during five conflicts: with Great Britain in 1812, Mexico in 1846, Spain in 1898 and the two world wars.

However, this nation has used its armed forces abroad in situations of military or potential conflict (or for other than normal peacetime purposes) more than 420 times, according to a report by Richard F. Grimmett, a congressional research service defense specialist at the Library of Congress.

U.S. forces have been in Afghanistan to Zaire, the Fiji Islands, Hawaiian Islands and Falkland Islands, Samoa, Sumatra and, yes, even Soviet Russia. The U.S. battled Barbary pirates and Mexican bandits but also deployed troops to protect American interests in foreign lands — too many times and in too many places (like Korea and Vietnam) — to fight and maybe die.”

In Response

In the comments regarding my last entry a reader wrote…

“The gates of Auschwitz were not opened with peace talks. Holland was not liberated by peacekeepers and fascism was not defeated with a deft pen. Time and time again men and women in uniform have laid down their lives in just causes and in an effort to free others from oppression.”

There is no questioning the fact that the Second World War is difficult to confront when commenting on the virtues of peace. Throughout history there have been those that have acted criminally and that have had no regard for it unless attained through the use of arms to secure a self serving state of peace. The Third Reich is one such example, but it is certainly not the only one, and certainly not the most infamous.

As we’re all aware, Auschwitz-Birkenau was physically discovered by the Red Army, but the existence of the camp was made known to the Allied powers by the Polish underground as early as 1941. While the extent of what took place at the camps was beyond imagination, it should not be forgotten than IBM, acting through foreign subsidiaries, provided the Third Reich with the punch card machines that helped them track down and identify Jews in Europe. Thomas J. Watson, then the CEO of IBM, was a known Nazi sympathizer who lobbied as the head of the International Chamber of Commerce to have the economic sanctions implemented against Germany lifted. He personally travelled to Germany numerous times in the 1930’s, was awarded The Eagle with Star medal from Hitler, and dined with the Nazi elite while Jews, and others, were being systematically rounded up.

While IBM has always denied that their assistance significantly aided the Third Reich, as the Germans would eventually take control of the operation and were unable to reproduce the punch cards themselves, Thomas J. Watson was never tried for treason, nor held accountable for his actions. He returned the medal that Hitler presented him after Germany declared war on the United States and remained IBM’s CEO. One of his masterstrokes, one made unquestionably either to cover his own ass or as the result of pressure from the US government given the dirt that they no doubt had on him, was the implemented the 1% Doctrine, which meant that IBM would not receive more than 1% profit from the sale of military equipment to the US government.

Watson is just one example of an American businessman that not only supported the Third Reich, but profited from his relationship with them. And those profits did not evaporate while young Americans were dying on the beaches of Normandy or at Anzio.

War has many faces, we look for the just ones, but the truth is that even the Second World War is replete with criminality on both sides. Of course, the dedication and sacrifice of those men and women that did their duty cannot be questioned. But the truth of the matter is that war remains war and peace remains nowhere near as exalted an enterprise in the annals of human history. For even in the aftermath of the most justifiable of conflicts, new conflicts arise out of their ashes, as was the case at the end of the Second World War. And because of that reality, atomic weapons were used on two Japanese cities to make a political point at Potsdam, one which only fueled the fire. That’s what happens when the likes of Dean Acheson are whispering in your ear.

The men and women of this nation that served in the Second World War certainly deserve our praise and gratitude for their sacrifice. Many members of my own family served, so it is something that has certainly never been lost on me. We are a nation that is commonly overlooked when it comes to out contribution in foreign wars, and World War 2 is certainly no exception. Our actions at Juno Beach on D-Day were exemplary, though they have been completely overshadowed by the accomplishments of others. That would be why I personally donated more money to the construction of the Juno Beach Memorial Centre than many Canadian corporations did.

The point of my last entry was to not to claim that peace should be ignorantly sought, but rather that we must safeguard ourselves in this current day and age against the wanton use of force and the wholly disrespectful use of the past to play on our perceptions and emotions to justify it. Afghanistan is not World War 2. Those that have been lost in Afghanistan are, in my opinion, victims of policy, and therefore their loss is extremely disconcerting. This nation has paid a greater cost in Afghanistan than any other when the size of the contingents involved are taken into account. And to me, that is simply unacceptable.

Defeating the Germans in the Second World War was something that certainly had to be done. Then again, so was the toppling of Rome given that it waged unrestrained wars of conquest for centuries and enslaved and killed millions over the course of its imperial domination. And yet, in the annals of history, the Roman civilization is considered one of humanity’s bright spots.

November 11, 2008 15 Comments

It’s eight o’clock in the morning. I have no idea what I am doing up, other than the fact that I went to bed pretty early. I watched The Other Boleyn Girl last night after rehearsal and prior to passing out. Why is it that no one can portray the Tudors with any historical accuracy?

Recent Catastrophes

Matters in China are looking grimmer by the day, as are conditions in Burma. One searches for words to put such catastrophes into context, but there are few. The best that I can offer is to suggest donating to the following relief efforts:

Oxfam
The Red Cross

Oxfam
The Red Cross

News Of Note

Congratulations are due the Supreme Court Of California who ruled yesterday that the State law banning same sex marriage is unconstitutional.

According to a recent report, the United States has detained some 2,500 children in Afghanistan, Iraq, and at the US facility at Guantanamo Bay since 2002. While that number has decreased, there are still some 500 juveniles being detained in Iraq, 10 at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, and of the 8 youths detained at Guantanamo, only two remain that were under 18 years of age when they first arrived. Of course, such detentions fly in the face of International Law as it pertains to Child Soldiers and juveniles, but there really is not point in arguing that fact being that the tenets of International Law only apply to those situations that the Bush Administration considers to be in their interest.

Speaking of juveniles, it seems that the United States is violating an international protocol forbidding the recruitment of youths under the age of 18 for service in the military. In the report entitled Soldiers Of Misfortune, it was found that the military is also disproportionately targeting poor and minority public school students. This, of course, should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone. It’s conveniently always the “dregs of American society” that seem to be “compelled” to defend the “American way of life” while middle and upper class white kids sit at home watching them die on television. The sad reality of modern American wars is that if you want to see one brought to an abrupt end, have rich white kids come home in metal boxes.

The “N” Word

President Bush, who recently claimed that he gave up golf because he thought it sent the wrong message to those that have lost loved ones in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, addressed the Israeli Parliament yesterday claiming that negotiating with militant organizations and radical governments was no different than the appeasement of the Nazi’s…

“Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” Mr. Bush said. “We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, Mr. Bush, the United States did nothing. It did not declare war on Germany, nor would it until Germany declared war on the United States on December 11th, 1941, four days after the attack on Pearl Habour. It would not act when France and the low countries were invaded and occupied, nor would it act when British cities were being decimated by German bombers.

For almost three years, while members of my family were in uniform, and their comrades were being stranded on French beaches having the crap kicked out of them only to be evacuated by civilian pleasure craft, the people of the United States wanted nothing to do with what was transpiring in Europe. By the time the “appeasement”, that you so casually referred to yesterday, had taken its toll, and Western Europe and parts of Africa were in German hands, the American public was still overwhelmingly against US involvement. Let’s also not forget that while Germany was being “appeased” by governments that had seen an entire generation devastated by war not two decades prior, major US financial institutions and corporations were doing business with the Reich, and would make millions in the process while those that would eventually fight along side American troops were being killed.

The reason, Mr. Bush, that you evoked the word “Nazi” yesterday was solely because you were in Israel, which is rather ironic being that an American company, that being IBM, sold the very machinery to the Nazi’s that they would later use to calculate the number of Jews, and others, eliminated during the Holocaust. Even more, that your own grandfather was the director of the Union Banking Corporation, with a convenient single share to his name, the assets of which were seized in 1942 under the Trading With The Enemy Act.

Like it or not, an American President addressing the Israeli Parliament is little more than a corporate president addressing shareholders.

May 16, 2008 19 Comments

In a surprising move after reports that Turkey’s offensive in northern Iraq would be sustained for the foreseeable future, Turkish forces began withdrawing yesterday in force. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that the withdrawal occurred just after President Bush called on the Turkish government to end the offensive and a day after US Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited the Turkish capital to deliver Washington’s message that the incursion must not be open ended. Of course, the Turkish government and military is claiming that the withdrawal was preplanned and that it had nothing to do with US pressure, but that’s obviously transparent given the fact that the withdrawal itself began before any official Turkish statements were made regarding it.

Were I to venture a guess, I would say that behind closed doors Washington rubber stamped the Turkish invasion and then used condemnation of it to remove suspicions of complicity. And, of course, the Turks played along and got what they wanted out of it.

That would be my guess anyway.

Gaza

Here’s the back story via the BBC…

I want to state, for the record, that the use of violence by both sides in this matter is, in my opinion, unforgivable given the toll that it has taken on civilians, both at present and in years past.

That said; when one looks at this in a very hard, cold light, there are a few realities that must be addressed, though many of you might disagree.

The governing issue of Israel and Palestine as entities and the decades old arguments about how that region has found itself where it is now aside, there are a few truths that we should be willing to admit as members of a society that is primarily pro-Israeli.

The first is that Hamas is a terrorist organization, one that is supported by numerous benefactors throughout the Middle East. They fire homemade rockets into Israel from the slums of one of the world’s foremost ghettos where millions rely on international humanitarian aid to simply survive. That aid, by the way, is also one of the most outstanding examples of international blackmail in modern history.

Israel, on the other hand, is supported by the world’s foremost military super power and is the recipient of immense military aid. They possess a state of the art air force, replete with US made fighters, bombers, and attack helicopters. They possess state of the art armour and boast one of the best-trained and equipped armed forces in the world. They also possess a nuclear arsenal, a navy, and one of the world’s most feared covert intelligence outfits.

Were Palestinian militants to possess the same military capabilities as the Israelis, the need to lob homemade rockets and employ suicide bombers wouldn’t be required. In short, they would possess the same ‘honourable’ weapons of war as the Israelis and be in the position to employ them in the exact same fashion that the IDF does. That is, of course, not something that Israel, nor those that support it, would ever stand for. Thus, those who believe in the ridiculous use of violence as a measure with which to lash out against Israel wouldn’t be lobbing homemade rockets into Israel from Gaza and, in the process, endangering the lives of innocents that end up paying the price when Israeli forces retaliate – not to mention killing Israeli civilians.

That is, if you actually believe that a fair brawl between conventional forces doesn’t produce civilian deaths, which is, of course, a fallacy. In truth, they produce far more.

In this neck of the woods, the math is simple. A single Israeli life is equal to that of maybe 100 Palestinians. Let’s face it, they’re terrorists and extremists, or at least that’s what they’re painted as being by our media. The Israelis, on the other hand, are simply trying to defend themselves. Never mind the massive economic disparities between the two, never mind that Gaza is little more than a massive prison camp for all intents and purposes, which provides the sort of atmosphere in which those desperate enough are willing to focus their anger in ways that are unconscionable. If you cage an animal long enough it’s going to do one of two things. Wither away to nothing or start taking swipes through the bars at those on the other side.

Gaza is not internationally recognized as being a part of any sovereign entity, nor is it claimed by any, though it’s currency remains the Israeli Sheqel. After Hamas’ victory in Parliamentary elections in 2006, Israel, The United States, Canada, and the EU froze all funds to the Palestinian government, economically crippling it. Due to the fact that Hamas is considered a terrorist organization, it is not viewed as a legitimate governing body, even within the tenuous confines of a government that never really had any international recognition beyond that required to placate those responsible for providing it economic aid. Thus, as long as Hamas remains in power, their presence will be used as an excuse to continue to punish the people as a whole, despite the fact that it was democratically elected – a process that those who refuse to recognize it claim to champion the world over (that is, as long as it conforms to their ideology).

Now, let me state for the record that I am not defending Hamas. Obviously, the recognition of Israeli’s right to exist is something that must occur. After decades of the same tired argument, the time has come to consider the welfare of the Palestinian people as a whole, which, for some, is a bitter pill to swallow. That said; there is certainly a reason why Hamas was successful in the elections in 2006.

Gaza is 41 kilometers long and 12 kilometers wide; that’s 360 square kilometers. In that space there are 1.4 million people, 1 million of which are officially recognized by the United Nations as refugees. Some 18% of children in Gaza between the ages of 6 months and 5 years old suffer from chronic malnutrition. 53% of women of reproductive age and children are anemic. Given such facts, one can begin to see why support for an organization that undertakes initiatives within the community to secure popular support, not to mention striking at those they view as their oppressors, might attract the support of the suffering and the disenfranchised. In truth, it’s not a phenomenon that is, by any stretch of the imagination, limited to that area of the world. It is a phenomenon that has been quintessential in the birth of Western democracies and, if we’re going to be completely honest, Israel itself.

Now, you can rush out and get a copy of The National Post and succumb to the bias that we’re exposed to on a daily basis regarding this issue, or you can spend some time trying to look at it from the other side of the fence (literally). I’ll not condone the use of violence as a method with which to enact change, but I will also not condemn those that feel they have no way out of a situation that is, in truth, entirely comparable to an existence in prison. There are better ways to go about it, I will admit that freely, and also not hesitate to suggest that such methods be embraced, but I do not live in Gaza, nor do I have to endure its realities, so that position remains one of a lofty Western idealist.

The Iranian Laptop Nuke Data

Gareth Porter provides some valuable insight regarding this issue…

“The George W. Bush administration has long pushed the “laptop documents” – 1,000 pages of technical documents supposedly from a stolen Iranian laptop – as hard evidence of Iranian intentions to build a nuclear weapon. Now charges based on those documents pose the only remaining obstacles to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) declaring that Iran has resolved all unanswered questions about its nuclear program.

But those documents have long been regarded with great suspicion by US and foreign analysts. German officials have identified the source of the laptop documents in November 2004 as the Mujahideen e Khalq (MEK), which along with its political arm, the National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI), is listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organization.

There are some indications, moreover, that the MEK obtained the documents not from an Iranian source but from Israel’s Mossad.

In its latest report on Iran, circulated Feb. 22, the IAEA, under strong pressure from the Bush administration, included descriptions of plans for a facility to produce “green salt,” technical specifications for high explosives testing and the schematic layout of a missile reentry vehicle that appears capable of holding a nuclear weapon. Iran has been asked to provide full explanations for these alleged activities.

Tehran has denounced the documents on which the charges are based as fabrications provided by the MEK, and has demanded copies of the documents to analyze, but the United States had refused to do so.

The Iranian assertion is supported by statements by German officials. A few days after then-Secretary of State Colin Powell announced the laptop documents, Karsten Voight, the coordinator for German-American relations in the German Foreign Ministry, was reported by the Wall Street Journal Nov. 22, 2004 as saying that the information had been provided by “an Iranian dissident group.”

A German official familiar with the issue confirmed to this writer that the NCRI had been the source of the laptop documents. “I can assure you that the documents came from the Iranian resistance organization.,” the source said.

The Germans have been deeply involved in intelligence collection and analysis regarding the Iranian nuclear program. According to a story by Washington Post reporter Dafna Linzer soon after the laptop documents were first mentioned publicly by Powell in late 2004, US officials said they had been stolen from an Iranian whom German intelligence had been trying to recruit, and had been given to intelligence officials of an unnamed country in Turkey.

The German account of the origins of the laptop documents contradicts the insistence by unnamed US intelligence officials who insisted to journalists William J. Broad and David Sanger in November 2005 that the laptop documents did not come from any Iranian resistance groups.

Despite the fact that it was listed as a terrorist organization., the MEK was a favorite of neoconservatives in the Pentagon, who were proposing in 2003-2004 to use it as part of a policy to destabilize Iran. The United States is known to have used intelligence from the MEK on Iranian military questions for years. It was considered a credible source of intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program. after 2002, mainly because of its identification of the facility in Natanz as a nuclear site.

The German source said he did not know whether the documents were authentic or not. However, CIA analysts, and European and IAEA officials who were given access to the laptop documents in 2005 were very skeptical about their authenticity.

The Guardian’s Julian Borger last February quoted an IAEA official as saying there is “doubt over the provenance of the computer.”

A senior European diplomat who had examined the documents was quoted by the New York Times in November 2005 as saying, “I can fabricate that data. It looks beautiful, but is open to doubt.”

Scott Ritter, the former US military intelligence officer who was chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, noted in an interview that the CIA has the capability test the authenticity of laptop documents through forensic tests that would reveal when different versions of different documents were created.

The fact that the agency could not rule out the possibility of fabrication, according to Ritter, indicates that it had either chosen not to do such tests or that the tests had revealed fraud.”

March 1, 2008 2 Comments

Not that I have a problem with white collar criminals being punished for their crimes – God knows they tend to do far more harm than your average street corner criminal whose environment has typically placed them in the business of stealing car radios. But when it comes to the law, especially precedents set with regards to extradition, there are reasons why extradition laws exist. Unfortunately, the United States doesn’t seem to think that the extradition process applies to those that they’re after…

“AMERICA has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States.

A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it.

The admission will alarm the British business community after the case of the so-called NatWest Three, bankers who were extradited to America on fraud charges. More than a dozen other British executives, including senior managers at British Airways and BAE Systems, are under investigation by the US authorities and could face criminal charges in America.

Until now it was commonly assumed that US law permitted kidnapping only in the “extraordinary rendition” of terrorist suspects.

The American government has for the first time made it clear in a British court that the law applies to anyone, British or otherwise, suspected of a crime by Washington.

Legal experts confirmed this weekend that America viewed extradition as just one way of getting foreign suspects back to face trial. Rendition, or kidnapping, dates back to 19th-century bounty hunting and Washington believes it is still legitimate.

The US government’s view emerged during a hearing involving Stanley Tollman, a former director of Chelsea football club and a friend of Baroness Thatcher, and his wife Beatrice.

The Tollmans, who control the Red Carnation hotel group and are resident in London, are wanted in America for bank fraud and tax evasion. They have been fighting extradition through the British courts.

During a hearing last month Lord Justice Moses, one of the Court of Appeal judges, asked Alun Jones QC, representing the US government, about its treatment of Gavin, Tollman’s nephew. Gavin Tollman was the subject of an attempted abduction during a visit to Canada in 2005.

Jones replied that it was acceptable under American law to kidnap people if they were wanted for offences in America. “The United States does have a view about procuring people to its own shores which is not shared,” he said.

He said that if a person was kidnapped by the US authorities in another country and was brought back to face charges in America, no US court could rule that the abduction was illegal and free him: “If you kidnap a person outside the United States and you bring him there, the court has no jurisdiction to refuse — it goes back to bounty hunting days in the 1860s.”

Mr Justice Ouseley, a second judge, challenged Jones to be “honest about [his] position”.

Jones replied: “That is United States law.”

He cited the case of Humberto Alvarez Machain, a suspect who was abducted by the US government at his medical office in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1990. He was flown by Drug Enforcement Administration agents to Texas for criminal prosecution.

Although there was an extradition treaty in place between America and Mexico at the time — as there currently is between the United States and Britain — the Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that the Mexican had no legal remedy because of his abduction.”

Now, I’m not excusing criminal behaviour, but the laws in ones country of origin take precedence, and that includes laws pertaining to extradition. In effect, the United States is claiming that it has the right to kidnap an individual and Render them to the United States without facing any consequences for such actions because the practice dates back to when bounty hunting was a commonly employed method of ‘Rendering’ individuals to the United States in connection to a crime. That position, in effect, renders the laws of other nations moot.

Now, can you imagine the utter shit storm that would ensure if the British were to employ the SAS to snatch someone off the streets of New York because they were wanted for a crime in the UK? There is little doubt that the Americans would be doing back flips and that the American public would claim it entirely illegal.

Thankfully, not everyone is playing along…

“In 2005, Gavin Tollman, the head of Trafalgar Tours, a holiday company, had arrived in Toronto by plane when he was arrested by Canadian immigration authorities.

An American prosecutor, who had tried and failed to extradite him from Britain, persuaded Canadian officials to detain him. He wanted the Canadians to drive Tollman to the border to be handed over. Tollman was escorted in handcuffs from the aircraft in Toronto, taken to prison and held for 10 days.

A Canadian judge ordered his release, ruling that the US Justice Department had set a “sinister trap” and wrongly bypassed extradition rules. Tollman returned to Britain.”

That is not to say that, by way of an established and recognized extradition process, individuals like Tollman shouldn’t ultimately answer for their crimes elsewhere. But as is the case in both the UK and the US, every person has a right to the full measure of the legal system that governs their country of origin. Thus, if appeals, and whatever else, can stall the process, that is a part of the legal system that we, as citizens of nations that champion the rule of law, must adhere to – like it or not. What it does not mean is that such individuals can be snatched off of the street and flown to a foreign country without due process being exhausted in their country of origin. Attempts at combating extradition must ultimately be exhausted with regards to due process before any legal transfer to stand trial in a foreign court can occur.

What is ultimately disgraceful about this is that those that are wanted for crimes against humanity or war crimes are commonly not targeted because the practice would set such a dangerous precedent with regards to the culpability of individuals such as, for example, Donald Rumsfeld. In 2004, a lawsuit was filed against Rumsfeld in Germany by a coalition of human rights organizations and four Iraqis. In February of 2005, a German court rejected the suit. Germany, like Canada, has laws that provide the legal system universal jurisdiction with regards to the prosecution of war criminals, meaning that if an individual is arrests in connection with such crimes on Germany soil they can be tried under German laws pertaining to war crimes, no matter where those crimes took place. But what they do not have the right to do, were a suit to materialize, is kidnap Rumsfeld and transport him to Germany to stand trial. They would, under the law, have to apply for an extradition request, which would obviously, and vehemently, be denied.

In short, the world’s foremost power has the ability to usurp the law when it suits their purposes. And while the President waxes poetical about the fundamental need for other nations to adhere to the rule of law, his own government ignores that maxim. As we’re all aware, in cases of Extraordinary Rendition, no oversight exists. Thus, no international body, or anyone else for that matter, has the ability to monitor what the United States does in that regard – not the International Red Cross, not the UNHRC, no one. Thus, innocent people have been subjected to an entirely illegal process, such as Maher Arar, who, after successfully bringing to light the reality of his ordeal in Canada, continues to be completely shut down by US courts.

In Italy, an Italian judge ordered that warrants be served in June of 2005 for 13 CIA officers complicit in the kidnapping and Rendition of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr to Egypt. The United States has, of course, refused to allow the individuals to be extradited for prosecution. There’s little doubt that the Italian government was aware of the operation, which might be the reason why Italian intelligence has yet to try and kidnap the 13 operatives and fly them back to Italy to stand trial. Of course, were they to attempt it, a shit storm of unimaginable proportions would follow.

How’s that for irony?

December 2, 2007 10 Comments

It’s been a question in the US for some time now – is waterboarding a form of torture? The Bush administration claims that it isn’t. The former US Attorney General claimed that it wasn’t. The newly confirmed US Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, claimed that he wasn’t even aware of what it was during his confirmation hearing – and this is a man that has presided over several high-profile terror trials.

In truth, waterboarding is a practice that dates back centuries, to the Spanish Inquisition in fact, if not before. The Gestapo and the Japanese used it during the Second World War – bizarrely, it was, at that time, considered a form of torture. The practice involves the simulation of drowning a person in hopes of eliciting information. Of course, as countless studies have shown, the use of torture doesn’t commonly result in the production of useful information, rather anything that will simply make the torture of that person stop. The results of waterboarding are no different.

Despite the current ambiguity of the US position regarding its use, not to mention how those being waterboarded have been legally classified, the practice is in direct contravention of the Geneva Conventions, to which the United States claims to subscribe. At least, that is, when it suits them.

Put another way – were an American operative to be, for example, captured inside Iran and waterboarded by the Iranians, how do you think it would then be defined by the United States? As torture? Or just a routine part of questioning? According to Senator John McCain, who is a Republican Presidential hopeful, and also spent years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, waterboarding is a form of torture. In fact, he claimed it to be “no different than holding a pistol to his head and firing a blank”.

Let’s take a look at a little history regarding the United States and waterboarding courtesy of the Washington Post…

“On Jan. 21, 1968, The Washington Post published a front-page photograph of a U.S. soldier supervising the questioning of a captured North Vietnamese soldier who is being held down as water was poured on his face while his nose and mouth were covered by a cloth. The picture, taken four days earlier near Da Nang, had a caption that said the technique induced “a flooding sense of suffocation and drowning, meant to make him talk.”

The article said the practice was “fairly common” in part because “those who practice it say it combines the advantages of being unpleasant enough to make people talk while still not causing permanent injury.”

The picture reportedly led to an Army investigation.

Twenty-one years earlier, in 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk.

“Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) told his colleagues last Thursday during the debate on military commissions legislation. “We punished people with 15 years of hard labor when waterboarding was used against Americans in World War II,” he said.

A CIA interrogation training manual declassified 12 years ago, “KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation — July 1963,” outlined a procedure similar to waterboarding. Subjects were suspended in tanks of water wearing blackout masks that allowed for breathing. Within hours, the subjects felt tension and so-called environmental anxiety. “Providing relief for growing discomfort, the questioner assumes a benevolent role,” the manual states.

The KUBARK manual was the product of more than a decade of research and testing, refining lessons learned from the Korean War, where U.S. airmen were subjected to a new type of “touchless torture” until they confessed to a bogus plan to use biological weapons against the North Koreans.

Used to train new interrogators, the handbook presented “basic information about coercive techniques available for use in the interrogation situation.” When it comes to torture, however, the handbook advised that “the threat to inflict pain . . . can trigger fears more damaging than the immediate sensation of pain.”

In the post-Vietnam period, the Navy SEALs and some Army Special Forces used a form of waterboarding with trainees to prepare them to resist interrogation if captured. The waterboarding proved so successful in breaking their will, says one former Navy captain familiar with the practice, “they stopped using it because it hurt morale.”

Torture is not alone defined by the physical abuse of a person. It is defined as the conduct of an individual with the intent of imposing great physical or mental suffering or anxiety on another. Note that ‘mental suffering or anxiety’ is also included in the definition.

For those that don’t think that this is a serious issue, former Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld might disagree…

“October 26, 2007, Paris, France – Today, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) along with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), and the French League for Human Rights (LDH) filed a complaint with the Paris Prosecutor before the “Court of First Instance” (Tribunal de Grande Instance) charging former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with ordering and authorizing torture. Rumsfeld was in Paris for a talk sponsored by Foreign Policy magazine.

“The filing of this French case against Rumsfeld demonstrates that we will not rest until those U.S. officials involved in the torture program are brought to justice. Rumsfeld must understand that he has no place to hide. A torturer is an enemy of all humankind,” said CCR President Michael Ratner.

“France is under the obligation to investigate and prosecute Rumsfeld’s accountability for crimes of torture in Guantanamo and Iraq. France has no choice but to open an investigation if an alleged torturer is on its territory. I hope that the fight against impunity will not be sacrificed in the name of politics. We call on France to refuse to be a safe haven for criminals.” said FIDH President Souhayr Belhassen.

“We want to combat impunity and therefore demand a judicial investigation and a criminal prosecution wherever there is jurisdiction over the torture incidents,” said ECCHR General Secretary Wolfgang Kaleck.

“That a criminal State representative should benefit from impunity is always unacceptable. Because the USA is the super power of the beginning of this century and, above all, because it is a democracy, the impunity of Donald Rumsfeld is even more insufferable than that of a Hissène Habré or a Radovan Karadzic”, underlined Jean-Pierre Dubois, LDH President.”

The irony, of course, is that even though Mr. Rumsfeld is no longer a member of the US government, were he to actually be arrested in France or Germany – where such charges have been filed – the reaction of the United States would be swift and severe. Of course, Mr. Sarkozy’s government would never tolerate it for obvious political reasons, which, to me, is simply aiding and abetting after the fact. Donald Rumsfeld is a private citizen now, not a member of government, and thus, in France, not to mention Canada, subject to laws pertaining to war crimes.

Unfortunately, when you were once a member of the government of the world’s foremost military power, one that refuses to recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court to spare its own from criminal prosecution, there’s little chance that you’ll ever be faced with answering for anything.

But that is not to say that there aren’t those in the United States that completely disagree with the government’s position on waterboarding – only that if they happen to be in a position to have their opinion heard at the federal level they’re simply shuffled off.

In 2004, acting assistant attorney general Daniel Levin was so concerned about the waterboarding issued that he volunteered to undergo the procedure so that he could experience it for himself. And while he knew that he would not die, and that nothing harmful would be allowed to happen to him, he claimed after the fact that the procedure ‘clearly simulated drowning’. While working on a memo regarding tighter controls being implemented over interrogation techniques, Levin was dismissed when Alberto Gonzales was appointed Attorney General…

The horrible truth is that the issue of waterboarding is simply the tip of the iceberg. In comparison to the abuse suffered by those that have been rendered by the United States to countries in which torture practices are commonplace, or to security forces who are known to torture, waterboarding may be the least of their concerns. What occurs at the hands of others has been reported at being worse in many cases, and as far as Black Sites are concerned, what occurs at them remains a mystery.

November 6, 2007 30 Comments