How American coercive extraction of information is changing the world“The United States is committed to the world-wide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. Nowhere should the midnight knock foreshadow a nightmare of state-commissioned crime. The suffering of torture victims must end, and the United States calls on all governments to assume this great mission.” George W. Bush, UN international day in Support of Victims of Torture, June 26, 2003.One month after Nine Eleven, the Bush Administration decided to invade Afghanistan. In November, Pakistani agents captured their first “high value prisoner”, an al Qaeda training camp operator named Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi. In Kabul, the interrogation began with FBI agents reading al-Libi’s rights; shortly after, they had extracted two terrorists’ names out of al-Libi’s confession. But the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was impatient. With White House backing, the agency seized al-Libi from the FBI and tried for several weeks to force information about Iraq terrorists out of him. It didn’t go according to plan, and al-Libi didn’t confessed anything else. Unable to seize results, they chained and gagged him and put him on a plane. “You’re going to Cairo,” a CIA agent whispered in his ear, but “before you get there I’m going to find your mother and I’m going to f*** her.” In Egypt, al-Libi admitted his presence in Iraq and training in chemical and biologic weapons. Despite several warnings from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) regarding the unreliable nature of al-Libi’s information, his statement was used by the Secretary of state Colin Powell while trying to justify the invasion of Iraq to the United Nations (UN). Two years later, al-Libi denied his confessions, claiming that they had been obtained under torture. Dan Coleman, an FBI agent that operated directly with al-Libi, claimed astonished: “It was ridiculous to think that Libi would have known anything about Iraq… he ran a training camp in Afghanistan!” (Pyle p.17).
By embracing the practice of torture, America launched a chain of events that has been altering the world, deeply affecting international relations. These procedures mainly involve disobeying, manipulating and avoiding international law. Most people believe foreign countries could never openly confront the most influential power in the world, but, contrary to what would be expected, America’s mistakes have been leading to a generalized overseas criticism and a dangerous compromise of typically accepted concepts such as ethical justice, publically approved cooperation and economically globalized world. The “War on Terror”, initiated by President George W. Bush, fulfilled the prophesy made two hundred years before on the Federalist Papers: “Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct.” (Federalist Papers, No. 8). During this president administration, U.S. corrupted its idyllic painting of courage and integrity into a transatlantic criticism and international disapproval.
Under this very same worldwide disapproval, the U.S. has been in danger of being pushed aside from intercontinental Human Rights treaties and courts, losing the existing good relations with its allies and destroying its reputation. Among all, one particular vital organization that was publically rejected by Bush was the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC is a judicial institution that deals with crimes against humanity, including war crimes and genocide. The Rome Statue, the treaty that consents and describes the functions and limitations of the ICC, has been ratified by most U.S. allies; the United States, on the other hand, sent a note in May 2002 to the ICC suspending its signature and renouncing any obligations to this court or the Rome Statue. Fellow Researcher and Policy Analyst at the Heritage Foundation, Brett D. Schaefer, explained that “The U.S. opposes the ICC because it lacks prudent safeguards against manipulation, possesses sweeping authority without accountability to the United Nations Security Council, and violates national sovereignty by claiming jurisdiction over the nationals and military personnel of non-party states.” (Schaefer, February 13, 2009).
Nonetheless, the reality, for those who want to see it, is that there is an American panicking fear of commitment towards any type of international justice that limits its action and dominance. Both David Scheffer, the Director of the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University School of Law, and John Hutson, the President and Dean of the Franklin Pierce Law Center, oppose Schaefer by stating, “The administration also signaled its support for torture by attacking the new International Criminal Court (ICC). Gonzales candidly admitted in his memorandum of January 25, 2002, that the administration did not want its officials prosecuted anywhere for crimes they might commit in the global war of terrorism.” Another truth that few want to admit is that the U.S. is being left behind. Scheffer and Hutson remarked: “Already, the United States has lost much of its authority on human rights issues and international law by being outside the ICC.” According to them, the U.S. is being “politely ignored or openly scorned” by ignoring the sovereignty of an international law. This cautioning also comes from the other side of the Atlantic; European Leaders have “warned the United States that any deliberate effort to destroy the ICC could do serious damage to transatlantic relations.” Put simply, the ICC is an indispensable “symbol for other nations of America commitment to the rule of law and human rights” (Hutson & Scheffer, 2008). The problem is that it is being neglected.
Concurrently, the United States of America has violated up to eleven international and national treaties, acts and codes for “torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners”, including the well-known U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights; The Torture Act War Crimes Act; Uniform Code of Military Justice; The Constitution of the United States of America and the Geneva Conventions, becoming the first country to ever do so (Mayer, p.9).
After breaking so many rules, one must think why the United States has not been punished for their actions yet. The Constitution shows us the answer to that question, a response that became immeasurably useful after Nine Eleven and was intelligently manipulated to fit Bush wishes: the President has the power and obligation to interpret the law, either international or national (The Constitution of the U.S., Article II, Section 2). In reality, the U.S. Commander-Chief is served by an Office of Legal Counsel which interprets the law for him. Jay S. Bybee and John Yoo were the two lawyers whofilled up the very gaps Bush needed to torture his prisoners and thus get meaningful information which could win the war for him.
The Administration first consistent argument revolved around the idea that the US was in a “new kind of war”, and that the “restraints imposed no longer made sense”. In this case, the President would have “unlimited power”. Second, as J. Jeremy Wisnewski, an acclaimed author on moral and political philosophy, published in his book Understanding Torture, “The conditions required to be construed as a combatant under Geneva II are not met by the specific title ‘terrorist’.” (Wisnewski, p. 202-225). Third, Wisnewski continues, “In order to prove that actual torture has taken place, it must be the case that you have experienced psychological harm for a ‘significant duration’. This means you cannot bring charges against your captors until your harm has existed for ‘months, or even years’.” And finally, “For an act to count as torture, an agent must intend to engage in torture. This, in essence, means that only the mentally disturbed (an out of control) interrogator would ever face possible conviction.” (Pyle pp.21-25). In his book Breaking and Making Norms: American Revisionism and Crises of Legitimacy, Ian Hurd demystifies these bad interpretations: “The international law against torture is unambiguous. Not only does it explicitly forbid states from engaging in such actions, but it grants no possible exceptions to this rule.” (Hurd, 2007). In fact, the Geneva Convention clearly states that a prisoner of war includes anyone “who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, finds themselves” in enemy hands. This, obviously, includes terrorists.
Ultimately, however, it didn’t really matter if it was legal or not, as long as it was secret. As part of its fear of commitment, America had to find a scapegoat in case things went wrong. The brilliant solution turned out to be rendition. Amnesty International defines rendition as “the transfer of individuals from one country to another, by means that bypass all judicial and administrative due process.” (Colluci, 2001).The CIA trick was to transfer “war prisoners”, like al-Libi, to countries where there were problems with international law effectiveness (also known as “black spots”). These states were mainly places where the physical and psychological brutality was widely accepted, like Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. This immense network of intelligence gathering was practically unstoppable and undetectable, especially if it was done by the richest country in the world. An anonymous U.S. Intelligence Officer quoted in the Washington Post of December 26th 2006, effectively summarizing the rendition policy: “We don’t kick the s*** out of them. We send them to other countries so that they can kick the s*** out of them”. (Pyle, p.61).
Everything was obviously done with the consent and caution of the White House. Most operations, however, reached a suspicious illegitimate point and had to be classified as TOP SECRET, which excluded the possibility of official ratification of any written archives. Today, only individuals’ evidences can testify what really happened. During the Committee on Foreign Affairs by the House of Representatives in April 17th 2007, with Bill Delahunt, chairman of the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight, presiding, Mr. Michael F. Scheuer, former CIA chief of the Bin Laden Unit, testified regarding the rendition policy:
“Mr. DELAHUNT: When you seized individuals in Europe or elsewhere outside of Afghanistan and Iraq and either held them or transferred them to another country, did you understand that there was legal authority permitting such seizures or captures apart from the legality of the rendition of transfer?Mr. SCHEUER: You know, I was born at night but not last night, sir. There is no operation at the CIA that is conducted without approval of lawyers. I don’t get paid—I didn’t get paid to make legal decisions. I got paid to protect Americans. And as long as the lawyers signed off, it got done. (…) I know there was much more consideration under the Bush administration about how to handle these people than there was under the Clinton administration, sir. There were no qualms at all about sending people to Cairo and kind of joking up our sleeves about what would happen to those people in Cairo in Egyptian prisons, sir. And the CIA was very much forthright in telling the administration that because we knew that we would get to this point in time where no one is going to sign up for what they ordered us to do sir.”As for international opinion regaring the rendition policy, Bill Delahunt had the chance to discourse: “Europe Parliament has openly opposed the rendition program. (…) As the minority witness in the second panel said ‘’It’s very convenient. It’s finding someone else to do your dirty work.’’ These extraordinary renditions are utterly inconsistent with our broader foreign policy goals of promoting democracy and the rule of law, the very foundations of civil society.” (House of Representatives, April 17, 2007).
As Bill Delahunt remarked, most European countries condemn the rendition program. Even so, since the European Union has an extended political, economic and social influence throughout the world, it is not a fatal problem for it to criticize the United States by its lack of accountability. Nevertheless, countries that depend exclusively on international financial aid, like Peru, have seen their safes severely depleted after dissenting U.S. attempts of indirect blackmail. According to the American Service-Member’s Protection Act, any international citizen employed by America does not have to respond to the ICC. Peru’s Foreign Minister Manuel Rodriguez remarked in 2004: “Peru will not sign any agreement that impedes it from submitting any country’s citizens to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court”. The result: this country lost - during the following year - $4 billion in military funds and $8 billion of economic funds. The same way, on December 18th 2002, the UN General Assembly approved by majority the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Representatives of 127 states, among them Israel, one of the most dependable U.S. countries in the world, voted in favor of the protocol; four opposed it (the United States, the Marshall Islands, Nigeria and Palau) and 42 abstained. Two days later, Israel Radio broadcasted that Israel's vote in favor of the Protocol had been "a mistake."
Still, the question remains: how much is really at stake? Dr. Bernard I. Finel, an Atlantic Council contributing editor and a senior fellow at the American Security Project, remarked that our European Allies, being democratic states and being responsive for political pressure at home, are bound by the statute and treaty of law. They will never accept or tolerate the misinterpretation of international treaties and the breaking of the rule of law. (European Union Guidelines, 2009).
This is not everything; torture effects dig far way deeper that only international justice or ally’s cooperation. Torture in America, torture by Americans, torture paid by Americans has a broader range of international consequences, mainly related to the public’s opinion. The very coalitions that have shaped the world may fall if not based on the rule of law. Europe leaders have been increasingly compelled by their population and press to adopt measures that will eventually lead to the repudiation of American obscure policies that violate universally accepted Human Rights. For European people, U.S. policies and actions don’t even tie anymore, turning both into non-credible sources. Moreover, the Muslim mainstream, whether resident in the Middle East or immigrant in Europe, is also discontent with American approaches. Several Muslims are no longer willing to cooperate with European intelligence sources, which are also turning their back on the U.S. for its bad influence, and many regard U.S. allies as part of the same “Melting pot” of tyranny (McGhee, p.20). As an ultimate consequence, it becomes harder to persuade the Arab world into adopt “Western-style democracy”. Tom Malinowski, a Washington Advocacy Director, correctly noticed that “When Saddam Hussein tortures a thousand people in a dark dungeon, no one says: ‘Hey, if those dictators can do that, it's legitimate, and therefore so can we.’ But when the United States bends the rules to torture, when the country that is supposed to be the world's leading protector of Human Rights begins to do--and to justify--such things, the entire framework upon which we depend to protect human rights--from the Geneva Conventions and treaties against torture--begins to fall apart.”
Economically, if America loses Europe Political and Social support, the alliances between these two massive groups of States will be weakened. Likewise, it will be their market relations and trade. The Sen Hypothesis argues that the satisfaction of basic Human Rights (such as the absence of torture), eventually leads to a country’s welfare and growth (Blume, p.6-9). In fact, to talk of secure economic rights makes little sense if anybody can be imprisoned without a fair trial, can be tortured, can disappear, or can even be killed without any type of political considerations.
Luckily, the new elected President Obama seems to have realized this. At the time he won the Nobel Peace Prize, he declared that the United States cannot "insist that others follow the rules of the road if we refuse to follow them ourselves." (Roth, 2010). The same way, Scheffer and Hutson affirmed that “Everything is running towards the ratification of the Rome Statue”, and even though Obama’s Administration has other priorities, it will get there.
The first black man to be at the top of the world has also a great stair yet to climb to restore international credibility and national acceptance: recognize the brutal violation of Human rights, reanimate cooperation, ratify the Rome Statue and reconnect America to the words Justice, Integrity and Safety. On the way, he has to clean up the mess left by the previous Bush Administration, which today is nothing more than a pile of big fat atrocities covered by dirty lies known only to ignorant terrorists like Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi.“The result is that hundreds of detainees have suffered serious mistreatment and criminal abuse at the hands of US interrogators and soldiers. Dozens more have been killed or been seriously injured by U.S. officials purportedly acting in accordance with U.S. legal Policy. Thanks to that policy and the lawyers who created it, U.S. conduct in the war on terrorism has already done immeasurable harm to our reputation as a law-abiding nation, our credibility as a champion of human rights, our tradition of military discipline and respect for the rule of law, our sense of values, and our efforts to win the hearts and minds of those who oppose us in the war on terrorism.” Karen J. Greenberg, The torture Debate in America (Greenberg, p.198)
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