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Known torturer and evidence destroyer Jose Rodriguez. (CIA photo)
As bmaz has pointed out in language blunt enough that one presumes even the willfully obtuse Holder Justice Department might understand it, many of us are bearing witness to investigator John H. Durham intentionally allowing the statute of limitations to expire on Jose Rodriguez’s crime of destroying videotaped evidence of torture. Marcy Wheeler’s torture timeline links to the documentation that the tape destruction occurred on November 8, 2005. The five year statute of limitations on that charge will expire in just a few days. Further, my understanding of the timeline is that the last known waterboardings took place in March, 2003. Some aspects of the torture statutes carry an eight year statute of limitations, so that deadline for waterboarding prosecutions will expire in just a few months. However, with over a hundred deaths of prisoners during US interrogations, there are a number of potential murder charges that are not subject to a statute of limitations.
Just for review, here is a piece of the strongest evidence against Jose Rodriguez for him to charged with conspiracy to commit torture. He was head of the Counterterrorism Center (CTC) at the time that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded. From the CIA OIG report, as I first mentioned in this diary, we have the following passage, where it is clear that Rodriguez’s CTC assessments “were unsupported by credible intelligence” and resulted in the “application of EIT’s without justification”. That means people were tortured without basis in credible intelligence, but were instead tortured, on Rodriguez’s order, based on his belief of “what the individual might or should know”. At that time, March 2003, Bush wanted evidence of Saddam Hussein working with al Qaeda on the 9/11 attacks, so that is the best guess on what CTC thought that KSM “should know” and therefore should have divulged during the 183 waterboardings.
It is difficult to imagine why Durham and by extension, Eric Holder and Barack Obama, all believe that they will be able to wrap up this whitewash by saying that nothing can be done once the statutes of limitations have expired.
Lurking in the shadows behind the torture and obstruction of justice charges, we still have the ugly truth of over a hundred deaths of prisoners during interrogations. There is no statute of limitations on murder, so there is no way to run out the clock on these charges. How will David Margolis be able to downgrade these crimes, to follow onto his degrading the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility report, where he reduced offenses by John Yoo and Jay Bybee to mere “bad judgment” from the original professional misconduct charges in their drafting of the torture memos?
What Durham, Holder and Obama need to know is that there is a community of people who believe that our country should abide by the rules of civilization and that when torture occurs, those responsible for giving the orders need to be held accountable. They should also know that the international community considers these crimes to be war crimes, and under that framework there are no statutes of limitations and no possibility for pardons or mitigating circumstances. By actively suppressing the investigation of war crimes, are Durham, Holder and Obama making themselves accessories to them?
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Durham, Holder and Obama: Charge THEM with obstructing justice.
“What Durham, Holder and Obama need to know is that there is a community of people who believe that our country should abide by the rules of civilization and that when torture occurs, those responsible for giving the orders need to be held accountable.”
Yes, but this community is too small.
“They should also know that the international community considers these crimes to be war crimes, and under that framework there are no statutes of limitations and no possibility for pardons or mitigating circumstances.”
The United States government has shown repeatedly that it doesn’t care a whit about the international community, and promotes nativism at home to maintain a base for such a posture.
“By actively suppressing the investigation of war crimes, are Durham, Holder and Obama making themselves accessories to them?”
Why ask this question, when we know the answer? Since we also have clear evidence of continuing war crimes under the Obama administration, including in regards to torture, they are not only accessories to war crimes, but offensive perpetrators themselves.
One must begin to ask at this point why the country as a whole has accommodated to torture by its government, in a way that the United States of say, 1945, or even 1965, would not have. Torture in previous decades would not have been tolerated, at least as an acceptable parameter of political action and discourse. Ronald Reagan, for instance, thought he would make political points in the country by supporting and signing the Convention Against Torture.
Why are the supposed people’s representatives and the mainstream press so silent on these issues?
We are contending with the debasement of an entire society, and as I’ve not tired in pointing out, this affects the entire political discourse and process in this country. There can be no progress — none, really — as long as the country has saddled itself to a torturing ethos. Additionally, leaving the torturers in power poisons the effectiveness, not to mention the legitimacy of any progressives in government.
Put simply, torture as policy makes people reactionary. Anyone older than 50 must certainly be aware at how degraded and inane the political discussions in this country have become. Torture is the lynchpin. I’d like to see more people here at Firedoglake take up the subject, analyze it in relation to the other issues they are working on, and draw the needed conclusions. Stop torture, fight for accountability, this is the only program at this point to effectively fight the reactionaries who have taken over. There is no other way, because the fact of torture stands in the way of all progress.
Yes, Jeff, our society has indeed been debased. And the community of those of us who realize that is far too small.
There is a good chance that it will take widespread use of torture within the country on citizens who merely oppose the government for the people to wake up in large numbers.
Thanks, Jim, for all you do on this subject. And to bmaz and EW (and Christy, in her absence) for continuing to highlight this all-important issue.
I certainly hope it won’t take the widespread use of torture domestically that you surmise. It might. But there’s one more card to play, and it might make a difference. I’ve already laid the groundwork for it (my articles on experimentation, and especially the one on Wolfowitz, DoD, and human subjects protections for prisoners/detainees), but only the payoff will finally turn the needed heads. I’m optimistic, but you and others will have to wait just a little bit longer for that.
Good luck, Jeff. I eagerly await the next step in the work you have been carrying out on the experimentation angle.
I should note, though many must know this, that the work on experimentation on prisoners by DoD (and CIA) that I’m doing is in tandem with Jason Leopold, who is very keyed in to this issue as well. Much of what has been and will be written on this subject is due to his diligence and passion for the subject.
Torture/ Murder/ Treason is what’s up.
Our constitution and attendant treaties are the law of the land, applicable to all or they are just a God Damn piece of paper.
So far they are just a God Damn piece of paper.
Most americans are down with waterboarding a suspect 183 times also with murder of an innocent suspects during questioning.
When they start randomly blowing away people it will be to late…
I think I’ll watch the movie V tonight to remind me that if like you say it will take a few million to wake up to this. The sad thing is they’re so busy trying to hang on to what little they have left they don’t notice this problem at this time. Thanks for the update
Excellent post Jim — thank you.
And an excellent comment Jeff. Friends think I’ve gone out the window when I explain that I can’t vote for anyone who ordered, supported, condoned, or refuses to prosecute torture — even if Caribou Barbie gets elected in 2012.
Obviously, there are many reasons to refuse to support the Obama administration. My feeling is that torture is such a hideous taboo that it is simply a deal breaker in all circumstances. It debases not just the person tortured and the torturer, but all of us. It simply cannot be tolerated. Once this is permitted, everything else it tainted. I always think of that line from U2′s “Bullet the Blue Sky” (which is probably borrowed from somewhere else like the Bible — sorry I’m not up on religion): “You plant a demon seed, raise a flower of fire.”
Until these wrongs are righted it is simply not possible to move forward. It doesn’t look very promising.
When we engage in torture, we degrade not only our own country but the rest of the world as well. Our empire may be in decline but it is still large, powerful and the focus of attention from other nations. The example we are setting is pathetic and vile.
We need Jim and Jeff and bmaz and every other willing and able person or we will end by leaving behind us a legacy of filth.
The redacted portions of the document shown would read:
TOP SECRET – NO FOREIGN DISSEMINATION – _________
(TS – NOFORN ________)
with a qualifier unique to the intelligence community following
Thanks.
If most folks will admit to anything under sufficient torture, and if the Bush White House wanted evidence of a Saddam Hussein-9/11 link, how is action taken by Rodriguez relevant to either credible or incredible intelligence? In other words, with only one conclusion possible, with only one outcome from torturing KSM acceptable in advancing the White House’s agenda, the only thing left for Rodriguez to do was to create the semblance of evidence. This method of working backward is the opposite of gathering intelligence. Intelligence doesn’t even enter the equation.
Part of the playing god game that is the essence of elevating the executive above the law is the god-like assumption of already knowing the right answers.
There is a paradox here with this whole torture and intelligence game. If torture is really about the exercise and display of power and not about intelligence, why assume that intelligence, either prior to or as a result of torture, is a function of motive or process?
Would credible intelligence validate torture? If torture is a crime, then the CIA OIG report criticizing Rodriguez for misconduct in acting without credible intelligence is irrelevant. From the perspective evident in the report, should it be assumed that provided Rodriguez operated within institutional parameters his actions would have been OK? If no, then any discussion of credible intelligence is a bullshit excuse. If yes, then this admonition that Rodriguez acted on his own in issuing orders to torture instead of relying on a process that supposedly required credible intelligence only serves to demonstrate that torture has been institutionalized and the report does not create any space between the CIA and Rodriguez. Unless of course one assumes that the ticking bomb is not the exception but the rule, the law that permits a crime to be legalized.
KSM was not tortured because Rodriguez ordered it.
Let’s see if Issa goes after this..
Thank you, Jim.
Obama et al may well imagine that they may subvert the Constitution with impunity, that they may get away with murder and with destroying evidence relating to such murder… However, even though a too-small group, here in America, understands what has happened and the dire implications for the rule of law which attend it, the international community must be ever more suspicious of a United States in eclipse, in free-fall decline. The international community will, at some point, have to realize that America cannot be trusted, that America has no sustainable principles and that, governmentally, its primary concerns are the violence of organized mayhem and of unfettered greed.
Simply, all three “branches” of American government are now complicit in torture, its cover-up and the diminishment of its significance.
The American government is, clearly, but a foul criminal enterprise merely riding around on pretenses “democratic principles” to fool its own populace and others gullible and fearful enough to imagine that torture and murder are necessary and even noble deeds.
DW
Thanks, Jim and everyone, for staying on this. And I will keep asking: Where are the children of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? Those poor kids!
As usual you hit the nail on the head with a 22 oz rocket framing hammer.
Hope all is well with you and you are recovering nicely.
Thanks for that reminder. It does not matter how evil the father is, imprisoning the children and using them to manipulate him is a horrible crime. There was a time when I thought that this was the crime that would finally open the floodgates for prosecution, but it hasn’t happened.
DW, great comment-as usuual.
BTW, where ya been?
“It is difficult to imagine why Durham and by extension, Eric Holder and Barack Obama, all believe that they will be able to wrap up this whitewash by saying that nothing can be done once the statutes of limitations have expired.”
It’s not difficult for me. There’s a community of us — am not sure how large — that care deeply about this issue. But as sorry as I am to have to say this, I don’t think most Americans give a rat’s ass. It’s our job to bear witness and do what we can — this isn’t a counsel of despair — but given the corporate media’s blackout of the issue and the fact that most people don’t care about wrongs unless their ox is gored, that’s my assessment.
“By actively suppressing the investigation of war crimes, are Durham, Holder and Obama making themselves accessories to them?”
Yes, of course. It would be nice to have someone keep a scorecard, starting with Bushco and continuing into the Obama Administration, of high government and military officials who deserve to be investigated and prosecuted for torture.
Part of the problem would be the sheer extensiveness of the list. One of the sadly clever things that Bush and the people around him did is force so many people to get their hands dirty over this that an entire social order, spanning party lines, is dedicated to sweeping it under the rug. Let’s fight on, as they say at USC, but let’s not kid ourselves about how difficult this is going to be.
You had me until USC. (My graduate work was at UCLA :))
“Friends think I’ve gone out the window when I explain that I can’t vote for anyone who ordered, supported, condoned, or refuses to prosecute torture — even if Caribou Barbie gets elected in 2012.”
In the 2008 California primary, I voted for Obama because I was tired of the Clintons and she was an obvious corporatist; I hoped he wasn’t a complete corporatist.
During the campaign, he said that he would filibuster any bill in the Senate that attempted to give retroactive immunity to the phone companies for helping the NSA illegally wiretap all Americans.
When the bill came up in the Senate, he voted for cloture, then voted to give the phone companies retroactive immunity. He forced me to vote for Nader. He hasn’t changed his tune either on torture or illegal wiretapping, so I won’t be able to vote for him in 2012, either.
Well, I worked at USC. Am an Occidental College grad myself.
The Bush administration pushed the Overton Window so far to the right that torture talk became a normalized part of national discourse. They were helped by the TV show “24″ or whatever it was called. Besides, the Bush administration taught us to BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID. And recent research has shown that when we’re afraid, we don’t think so good.
What we need to turn all that around is some presidential leadership. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like we’re going to get it.
Bob in AZ
PS what happened to all the editing functions? Do we have to memorize the html coding now?
I’m entirely befuddled by the new format. What does that flag icon mean?
Bob in AZ
The flag icon is for flagging comments as inappropriate.
We do hope to have the comment edit capability and formatting functions restored soon.
Thanks Jim for your attention in this matter. I’d think the D of J should be more interested in matters of state torture and less interested in whether California passes Prop 19. You’re concerned about someone huffing a fatty with impunity but willing to cover for torturers?
Oops — I’ve been using it to mark a comment next to one of mine so that when I’m ego-surfing, I have a reference point to look for my comment and possible reactions to it now that there are no numbers…
That does seems to be an inverted set of priorities, doesn’t it? Add to that how aggressively they are going after those who leak secret information while at the same time granting retroactive immunity for illegal wiretapping.