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Responding to an Italian court’s conviction in absentia of 23 US officials for kidnapping a Muslim cleric, who we then reportedly rendered to Egypt for torture, the Obama Administration further disgraced itself and America’s image by calling the results "disappointing."
They should have applied the word to themselves.
ABC reports that one of the convicted officials concedes the US broke the law, but she argues the Bush and Obama Administrations should have claimed diplomatic immunity for her:
One of the 23 Americans convicted today by an Italian court says the United States "broke the law" in the CIA kidnapping of a Muslim cleric Abu Omar in Milan in 2003.
"And we are paying for the mistakes right now, whoever authorized and approved this," said former CIA officer Sabrina deSousa in an interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC’s World News with Charles Gibson.
DeSousa says the U.S. "abandoned and betrayed" her and the others who were put on trial for the kidnapping. She was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison.
US officials just couldn’t find enough people to say how "disappointed" they were that the Italians had done what two Administrations and their respective Justice Departments didn’t do.
A State Department spokesman said the Obama administration was "disappointed" by the verdict.
Also convicted was Air Force Colonel Joseph Romano, who allegedly helped facilitate the CIA kidnapping team’s flight to Egypt from a U.S. air base in Italy.
The Department of Defense had unsuccessfully claimed the court had no jurisdiction over Romano under the NATO Status of Forces Agreement.
"We are clearly disappointed with the ruling and the lack of respect for the fact that we have asserted jurisdiction in this case," said Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell.
Yeah, I’m disappointed too about the "lack of respect." I really hoped this Administration might have a modicum of respect for the rule of law, not to mention respect for other nations and their citizens. But apparently that’s too much change to expect.
Seminal, more background from SadButTrue
49 Comments
If it’s any consolation the Italians let off some of them who were covered by diplomatic immunity.
Still I find it curious that there seems to be a double standard here for progressives. When the CIA kidnaps and tortures people apparently that’s a crime and they are bad guys and Obama should have charged them and its good that the Italians did charge them. But when US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan collectively kill over one million people during a criminal invasion and occupation— nothing.
Do progressives just really hate the CIA or something? I find the progressive notion of respect for the rule of law to be quite hard to figure out.
maybe you should read people like Arthur Silber, and Chris Floyd, whose point of view has had predictive validity about the behavior of the Democratic Party.
Namely, that
Arthur Silbur, from 2006
in the scientific method, predictive validity is a strongly indicates in favor of a hypothesis.
but, I am aware that continual support for the Democratic faction of the ruling party is more a matter of faith than reason, but even so, expressions of surprise at developments like these are a little out of order.
and, to help you understand statements like this
you could ponder the wizard from whoisioz: another crazy guy with these predictive abilities that derive from accurate hypotheses:
thats basically what Obama’s Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell meant.
Thanks for the link to my diary Scarecrow. It’s my very first here. :-)
Sporkovat, I had to turn around to see if you might be looking over my shoulder or something. I very much see this case as having a lot of connections with that of Maher Arar, which is the subject of a post by Jeff Kaye on the FDL front page.
Arar Decision Cripples Torture Rendition Suits
Two principles are in play in both cases; The first is that of American Exceptionalism, which supposes that US interests trump those of other nations, even within the borders of those other nations. I’m well familiar with that.
bmaz was schooling me on the second principle – sovereign immunity – on the threads at the Arar post I just linked. That supposes that the interests of the US government trump those of its own citizenry, its laws, and even the principles bound in the Constitution. As I opined over there, it sounds way too much like Divine Right of Kings to me. bmaz agreed that it is very similar in application. How freaking depressing is that?
Your comment, and especially that lengthy quotation, only sharpen focus on what is a very sad truth indeed. Namely that constitutional ‘guarantees’ are nothing of the kind. You have rights only if and when the government says that you do.
We are finding that this administration is not so different. The why we are blaming on Obama. Yet we forget that the advice He gets comes from the same places Bush and Clinton got theirs. All of the parts of our Government weren’t changed with His election. The Pentagon is the same, the intelligence agency’s are the same, the State Dept.is the same, and even the Justice Dept. is the same. He may have gave them different leaders, but the agency’s are the same. The new leaders don’t run the show, and rely on the same people below them. Therefore the advice given to the President is much the same.
The principal that even an ally, if they do something we don’t like, is to be castigated for it lives from the past. To have the adasity to try our people is, is just out of bounds. We look at what we do as much different. If we did the same to Italians we would expect them to fully agree with it.
GEE!! I wonder why the world see’s us as having a double standard?
No President can run the whole show, so is forced to act by what advice on an issue is given to Him. They far to often follow the advice given, because are told this is best for the policy of the Country. Presidents don’t want to act against the Country, so they trust and follow where they are led.
Also there are White House Lawyers that advise Him on almost every statement HE makes, telling Him everything has lasting implecations.
Cheers, Mr. SBT.
I had not seen that Jeff Kaye post, and I just skimmed the comments.
good grappling with hard issues, you and bmaz.
when I last was reading Kafka, quite awhile ago, it was disturbing but safely distanced as fiction. Now, not so much.
Same with the notion of the Divine Right of Kings – ludicrous! but far away in time and place. Again, maybe now, not so much.
Dire times like these sure cry out for … paltry fake red-herring misdirections like the ‘Public Option’, that might marginally help 2 million Americans in 2013! oops that was OT.
hmmm, so GeeDubya’s early years as President were botched because he was just heeding the advice of all the Clinton people still in the govt, and just acting according to the wishes of the permanent bureaucracy?
I don’t recall any ‘progressives’ or Democrats making that case at the time.
but, otoh, you are right in that both Obama and Bush before him, are acting in accordance with longterm, unswerving trends towards more militarism, secrecy, and oligarchy.
that is why ‘Hope-n-Change’ was just implausible, market tested rhetoric for many of us. So yes, it was “too much change to expect.”
“No one could have anticipated” thats the face saving phrase for duped ‘progressives.’
NPR reported the Italian conviction today, following with a story from Nina Totenberg about a case the Supreme Court heard today that made my jaw drop….
In our name:
You should post that comment on this thread:
The Aftermath of a “Racial Prosecution” Under Bush
It’s about Alex Latifi, an Iranian-born Democrat who was wrongfully prosecuted for espionage in Alabama. The case was utterly bogus and politically motivated. It appears that this principle of prosecutorial discretion is wide-ranging.
Consider the subjects of some of the most recent diaries. The government’s response to these CIA convictions, the denial of any justice for Maher Arar, the Latifi case, and the matter you cite before the SCOTUS. The common link is that the law and all its minions supports the concept of unlimited power, even when that power is patently unconstitutional.
One’s conclusions are drawn into two possibilities. You could say that the legal system is broken. Alternatively, you could say that it’s working fine, but that it is designed to protect the powerful even when guilty and punish the weak even when they are innocent.
23 people?
Any of you know what they actually did? I guess some of them okayed the kidnapping. How many did it take to do the actual deed?
They just grabbed the guy off the street?
anyone know if ….anyone who was asked to be involved in this kidnapping declined the invitation?
you have to like this:
” the lack of respect for the fact that we have asserted jurisdiction in this case.”
“asserted jurisdiction”
hahahahah.
Once again I have to note that when it comes to the CIA who were just following orders we have what looks like a 100% agreement that they both did wrong and that they should be prosecuted for it. But when it comes to the far more serious crimes committed collectively by the US soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan hardly anyone agreed with me that the soldiers should be condemned for their actions.
The conclusion is that the progressives here at FDL have little to no sense of consistency or true respect for either the law or the lives of foreigners.
Welcome, and write more, please. I did not see your earlier post when I was writing mine last night.
That’s astonishing, and depressing. I guess the due process clause of the 5th and 14th Amendments just disappeared.
I’ve heard the CIA apologists say “we did what we had to do.” Okay, let’s concede that point. If the CIA felt it was necessary to kidnap people off the streets of sovereign countries, they should at least have the courage to acknowledge the consequences of such actions. Instead I hear a bunch of whining how “we did it for the good of our country, don’t blame us!”
If these pitiful CIA kidnappers with their sob stories feel they’re being abandoned and people like Abu Omar are so dangerous, maybe they should have considered using diplomatic and legal methods to deal with the situations.
The US asserted jurisdiction in this case? On what grounds? Don’t the Italian courts have jurisdiction? Can the US just assert jurisdiction whenever and wherever it pleases? Were the officials in the Bush administration and the CIA who ordered the kidnapping convicted, too?
I suppose the question I’m asking is: Why didn’t US authorities just ask the Italian government before kidnapping a cleric and shipping him out of Italy? Did they?
I admire the Italian judge for his courage and think this is the right initial result to its investigation. DeSousa is right, too, of course.
These two dozen odd personnel did their jobs. They did what they were trained and ordered to do by the highest levels in the Pentagon and the White House. They implemented one out of hundreds of extraordinary renditions – violent kidnappings – in partial collaboration with Italian state authorities. The action was a “success”, in that the “target” was apprehended, silenced, immobilized and sent on his merry way for an extended bout of verschaerfte Vernehmung.
When the Italian judiciary refused to kowtow to claims of “
US panicinternational necessity”, the Bush administration cut these guys loose like they were military guards at Abu Ghraib.The Obama administration, so willing to pick up Bush’s excesses and make them their own, relied on a tepid, “state secrets” defense. No doubt, it and its predecessor also attempted a little blackmail, courtesy of the DoD, the State Department, and those odd little departments whose names read like the abbreviations for dangerous chemicals. That succeeded with the Italian state, but not with its judiciary, which is used to the risks associated with investigating and prosecuting Mafia dons in their own back garden.
If the US believed in what it’s doing, in what it did, it would have mounted a stronger defense of its employees’ authorized actions. It didn’t. So it doesn’t. But it does it anyway. Just which party, please, was supposed to bring
XXX-ratedadult behavior back to the Beltway?Hmmmm… and how do I respond to one of my kids when they try out the excuse…. “b…b…but she told me to.”
That being said. In this case, I DO think the people who told them to also deserve consequences as well. But that still doesn’t excuse subordinates doing things that are clearly illegal and unconscionable.
Just who the heck does Italy think they are? Some kind of civilized, law-abiding nation or something?
AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…
Citizen Scarecrow and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:
Before we throw Obama into the shit pile with the rest of the war criminals in the military-security apparatus of our government, I want to see just what this “disappointment” means. Let’s remember that not unlike JFK, Obama is steppin into a situation in which the entire unelected, fascist military-security force of the country is firmly entrenched and quite capable of bringin’ the elected government down with a single shot. If Obama takes any steps to secure the convicted criminals, exonerate them or isolate Italy in any way …well then I think we need to step up and call ‘em all out. But if, as I expect, Obama is gunna try and weather the Astro-turf media onslaught that is certainly gunna come through the corporate megaphones and doesn’t get sucked into marginalizin’ himself by publically supporting our war criminals, then I think we need to take a deep breath and move forward.
There is a huge fight goin’ on in the secret government right now and Obama can’t do anything in Iraq or Afghanistan until he quarantines the corporate security apparatus and gets some political space to manuver.
Remember that elections and votes in Congress don’t mean nuthin’ to the forces that have controlled our country for the last 60 years. Until Obama is forced to capitulate to the crypto-Nazis in the shadow government, let’s make sure we understand who the enemy is here and don’t cut Obama’s feet out from under ‘im
KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, WE HAVE SEEN THE ENEMY AND HE ISN’T US!!
lol ! WELL i would’nt go quite that far, but they are right in this case.
Im trying to figure this out and answer my own questions @14. As I saw in the cited article and as you point out, Italian authorities were involved. So did the Italian judge essentially rule that the Italian state authorities were breaking Italian law and convict the US participants in the crime along with them?
In other words, did an Italian prosecutor just successfully start and finish a prosecution of Italian state authorities, while US prosecutors don’t have the cuglioni even to start such a prosecution?
So much for US moral superiority…
Gotta agree.
The Bush Administration did exactly what had been planned. They knew they were leaving and they wanted to create chaos so that the next administration would have such a difficult time that the Rs would take the next election. We had better be very careful about falling into the obvious trap.
Luckily I can no longer be disappointed by this administration as I expect nothing good from it. The list of turn-abouts, flip-flops, sell-outs and downright lies emanating from the White House is truly mind blowing. Of course a president that is willing to bow down and kiss the ass of any one that comes by with money has already established his real profession.
I agree with both of you, Norske and Twain, if such were possible and permitted ;-)
Understand the sentiment, but we gotta keep the pressure on. Do something to move things in the right direction. For example, MAKE A HOUSE CALL today!
ah yes, the old “The President is just a helpless kitten” excuse.
akin to the old “we don’t have the votes” excuse we heard so much of when the (D)’s were in the minority in Congress.
well the (R)’s don’t have the votes to stop anything now, but they are sure jamming the gears pretty well anyway, aren’t they?
it is true that the secret govt, black budget milieu is a force to be reckoned with, but here is a simpler explanation that comports equally well with the available evidence – the President of the United States is doing exactly what he wants to do!
Its like some superstitious peasants being pummeled by a thunderstorm saying “the Gods must be very angry!!!” … no, its exactly what it appears to be, a thunderstorm.
it is Obama governing under the real, existing principles of the USA, today, not some principles ‘progressives’ imagine him to secretly have, under eleven dimensional layers of camouflage.
Jeeze now I never would have thought of that.
I believe that the judge prosecuted several Italian actors individually, while declining to prosecute others, but did not prosecute state agencies.
The astro-turf media onslaught will be there no matter what Obama does until he leaves office. He gains nothing through concession to his enemies.
In this case, it would have been better for the administration to say nothing than to express public disapproval of Italy’s judicial process, which only draws further attention to the fact that the U.S. places itself above international law.
A. Siegel has a fresh post on the front page: “Cancer on the Brain… and a Perspective on Health Care”
Hopefully, we can get as many people as possible to call Congress today and tomorrow!
Leen’s latest diary thanking Italian prosecutor Armando Spataro might have more answers.
Citizen ratfood:
I didn’t say anything about “concession to his enemies”…quite the contrary. Obama’s “disappointment” will only be a “concession to his enemies” if he allows himself to take actions in this matter that further isolate the US and strengthen the shadow corporate government. The Italian courts have spoken and the criminal CIA operatives are quarantined, so what do Obama’s words of “disappointment” have to do with “concessions to his enemies”. For God’s sake man, keep yer eyes on the fuckin’ target.
Citizen sporkovat:
You remind me of a lotta the ignorant, gungho John Waynes who came over to ‘Nam to kill all the commie mutherfuckers and save the world for democracy and general motors. They mostly got themselves killed but not, unfortunately, before they took other GI’s with ‘em. Shit, with help like you, who needs cancer.
unsubstantiated word salad – impossible to engage with!
thanks for laying off the CAPSLOCK key, though.
maybe you remind me of the guy from Betelgeuse but I try to refrain from such devoid of substance free- associations.
One wonders, if someone were to extraordinarily render some of these 23 convicts from wherever they happen to be to Italian soil so that they’d have a chance of serving their sentences, would that be OK with the White House? Or would it be disappointed by Italy’s failure to prosecute kidnapping and use extradition proceedings?
Unfortunately, any followup to the convictions isn’t likely to happen. Italy may have some competent magistrates. But Berlusconi makes the Shrub look like a model of statesmanship and propriety, and he is very much aligned with their wingnut politics.
We should step back and ask again why the US chose to “render” this man in 2003. Italian state authorities had been investigating him for years and were close to an arrest and prosecution. That would have been a public act, for which the Italian state would have been publicly responsible. The trial, most of it, at least, would have been public. So, too, would have been the evidence, which would have led either to a conviction or acquital, again, in open court.
The US sidestepped all of that, crushing the law and this man’s rights. It abducted him and sent him to be tortured in Egypt, the country from which he had fled and gone to Italy, which found his story credible and gave him political asylum.
The US did this shortly before it launched its invasion of Iraq. Was it part of a decapitation policy, an attempt to round up its most probable credible critics and those most likely able to support domestic Iraqi or Afghan opponents of our wars? Did the US simply need a little good press, and a distraction from its war in Afghanistan and its soon to be war in Iraq?
Was the US looking for names of his contacts, so it could render or take them out, too, all the better to complete its conquest. Surely, Shirley, the conquest of middling or lesser states in the Middle East was never in doubt, not for the world’s biggest and best military force. The battle would always be about the occupation, which Cheney clearly expected would be decades long.
So much wrapped up in the torture and abuse of a single man, which one little trial in Italy might bring to light. The US may be the strongest military and economic power on earth (though like all pinnacles, they are hard to achieve and difficult to stay on). It is certainly the most easily frightened, the most ready to ignore its principles and lash out blindly, thus creating for itself new principles of a lower order.
I say, good for the Italian judge.
If Italian secret service agents had conspired to kidnap someone off the streets of, say, Washington, D.C., and export him for torture, and if in fact they did so, no U.S. judge (if we had caught the perpetrators) would be inclined to let them off the hook.
The Italians have an advantage here in that they may prosecute defendants in absentia.
It will undoubtedly take additional prosecutions to teach U.S. underlings that it’s worth resisting governmental orders to commit crimes. Unfortunately, I see little prospect that the prosecutions will be American.
I don’t think “nothing” is a fair assessment of my reaction. What ‘Progressive’ were you referring to in particular? I bet they are not a progressive.
Since Progressive is what I am calling my religious freedom political movement, and it is profoundly anti-war, I think you are misinformed. Who is this fake progressive who is not responding? Name names.
I think the statement was just a bit of kabuki to pacify the people over at Langley. The crime occurred on the last watch, it is not likely to happen again on this one.
I see a difference between soldiers who sign up with naive but good intentions and then are put in impossible situations, and secret agents plotting and carrying out violent crimes with the assumption they have taken a job that protects them from ever being held responsible for their acts.
I see it attracting a different type of person, more sadistic, but perhaps I am wrong.
Are you saying all of our soldiers should be tried, or none of the CIA agents?
a poll conducted at the recent Netroots Nation conference of ‘Progressive’ bloggers, the attendees put ‘activism against the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan’ dead last on a list of their priorities, now that they have a Democrat in the White House.
see question 12 in the linked PDF.
so yeah, maybe its not ‘nothing’ as DB puts it but it is last on their list, now that Bush is gone.
Oh its worse than “dead last” because they just meant opposing the war in the abstract without condemning any of the soldiers. That would be like saying of this piece, “Well I condemn kidnapping but of course the CIA are not to blame for this. They were just naive young people following orders.”
In fact condemnation of US soldiers is something that really enthuses most progressives — to attack the very idea of it.
But yeah I am not surprised that genocide under Obama is not a priority even in the abstract.
Well I won’t name names but many of the regulars here attacked me and continue to do so because I condemn the US soldiers for their part in the Iraqi occupation. In my experience that attitude is typical of the US so-called peace movement which often praises US soldiers and even puts them at the head of its marches at times!!
I agree. I don’t think anyone here supports these convicted agents; they simply want their superiors in the dock, too, as they should have been over Abu Ghraib, illegal domestic spying and state-sanctioned torture.
There is a clear distinction. Enlisted personnel can be punished by prison (or even death in some cases) for desertion or disobeying orders, as several have for refusing deployment to Iraq. CIA officers are free to leave their positions and most enter their careers knowing that many things they do could subject them to legal sanctions of foreign states or international bodies. This is what made Ms. DeSousa’s whining so amusing to me. You know what the score is when you get into that game, if you are incompetent or unlucky enough to get caught playing Masters of the Universe in another land, don’t whine about it.
Don’t whine about the risks of capture and abuse by a third party. They have every reason to complain when their employer and government disavows their actions as if they were a wildly expensive scientologist actor making another impossible movie about a mission without a point.
I’m not sure which third party you are referring to, as far as I know, the Italian government doesn’t make a habit of capturing people for purposes of abuse. I also don’t see how she has “every reason to complain” when she was obviously working covertly and admitted that she knew they were breaking the law, she’s lucky she isn’t in an Italian jail. Also, the U.S. government has not disavowed their actions, they have tried to hide them behind specious legal arguments, which I guess is their best bet short of asking the Italian government for clemency as I heard suggested on DN! this morning.