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Rumsfeld and The Taxi to the Darkside

News today that Donald Rumsfeld is the target of a legal complaint filed in France accusing him of masterminding the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo gives Rummy a chance to walk in the shoes of Saddam Hussein.  Like Saddam, Rummy insists he did nothing wrong and that he was simply pursuing the best interest of the American people.  How you going to make an omelet without breaking some eggs?  Right?  I doubt if Rummy will wind up on the gallows in France, but the charges against him are real and are serious.  And if karma and justice are linked, Rummy will be tried and convicted.

One thing is certain, Rummy is now part of an exclusive but growing club of Amcits who face legal peril in foreign lands because they participated (allegedly) in some kind of torture, disappearance, or other violation of international human rights.  That means he won’t be going on any foreign junkets.  Once outside the safe confines of the United States he can be snatched up and hauled off to France to face questioning.

Rummy’s role in promoting violations of the Geneva Conventions and encouraging the use of torture on prisoners captured in Afghanistan and Iraq will receive more attention in the coming months.  Especially when the movie, Taxi to the Darkside, is finally released to the general public.

This amazing and disturbing film tells the story of how some of our soldiers, with the full encouragement of civilian leaders, tortured prisoners.  They tortured innocent men.  And in the process of torturing these souls some of our soldiers beat helpless prisoners into a bloody pulp.  The account of an Afghan taxi driver, wrongfully accused of terrorism and imprisoned at Bagram, will haunt you after you see this powerful work.  He was beaten to death by young men you would be proud, at least before they engaged in torture, to have as a son.

Some U.S. soldiers were sadists and torturers.  Some were and are heroes.  The movie is not your typical diatribe indicting guys in uniform for beastly acts.   The movie also reminds us that the military, by culture and tradition, is inhabited by men and women of honor, who condemn the unspeakable acts of colleagues and insist on accountability.  But those held accountable are of little import.  It is the failure to hold their political and military leaders responsible that sticks in your craw.

The movie documents that the so-called “abuses” in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are in fact a deliberate policy born in the squalid jail at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan.  The United States of America, which led the way in the aftermath of World War II in punishing the Nazis and the Japanese for war crimes, for human rights abuses, for torture, and for murder, has now itself descended into depravity and barbarism.  We now excuse torture, justifying it in the name of securing the homeland.

Hitler’s Germany, also used the siren call of protecting the homeland, to justify  exterminating Jews because the very salvation of the German people and their racial purity was at stake.  As long as the issue can be cast as one of survival, anything goes.  Not so with Alex Gibney.  Gibney, the director of Taxi to the Darkside, offers a jarring indictment of America’s fall from grace and embrace of evil.  But he was raised right.  His father was an interrogator in World War II and instilled in his son the understanding that humans, even in the filth of war, must retain their humanity and treat enemies with respect, regardless of their misdeeds.

When this movie gets out most thinking people will be unable to excuse Donald Rumsfeld’s crimes or pretend he was a doddering fool, oblivious of naked male pyramids and waterboarding, who just did not know what was going on.  He knew.  He helped set the table.  He justified his actions as necessary evils in pursuing and stopping the terrorists.  But in the end, he was the evil doer.

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Comment by John | 2007-10-26 23:28:13

I don’t think it will happen, but it would be highly ironic if Hillary Clinton used the powers that Cheney/Bush have amassed in the Unitary Executive and decided to do clean house and payback for every bit of BS that has been slung at her for the past 15 years.
Ship them boys right to the Hague and make the records of the the US government available to the prosecutors.
Revisit Limbaugh’s drug purchases. And on and on.
Bush better be handing out a lot of preemptive pardons come Jan 2009.

Comment by Waiting in Texas | 2007-10-26 23:57:35

Larry - great article. So does this mean that if Alberto Gonzales and the little wife were to go to Europe for a vacation, Alberto could be picked up?

Comment by Larry Johnson | 2007-10-27 00:46:16

It is a real possibility.
LJ

Comment by Carlos | 2007-10-27 02:32:18

Larry but do u real think that France will do something to a ex boss of the US DOD? i dont think so!

 

Comment by Centrocitta | 2007-10-28 07:35:57

Tom Lantos, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee shold be picked up too when he ventures outside the USA. He’s a Holocaust survivor and recently told a group of Dutch officials visiting Guantanamo Bay that, “Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay”. “You have to help us because if it was not for us you would now be a province of Nazi Germany”.

Obviously, the old Jew doesn’t understand that two wrongs don’t make a right and he should retire or be forced to resign. What kind of person with attitudes like this can be expected to make responsible decisions for the USA? Furthermore, remarks such as Lantos’ do nothing to help USA and EU relations. The EU told Bush not to invade Iraq and now Europe is sticking it to him real good with the Dollar crashing at record lows against the Euro and the Pound.

 
 

Comment by chris | 2007-10-27 02:17:36

Just think about how some people still hunt down nazi criminals. statute of limitations be damned.

Comment by Shirin | 2007-10-27 02:40:29

There ARE crimes, such as murder, for which there is no statute of limitations. I think you find that there is not any statute of limitations on war crimes, Chris.

 
 
 

Comment by Doran Williams | 2007-10-27 07:30:37

Pre-emptive pardons will not prevent prosecutions by other Nations or by an international body. In fact, pre-emptive pardons may facilitate prosecutions internationally.

It is my understanding, admittedly not that of an expert, that before an international tribunal will initiate prosecutions against the citizen of a particular nation, that particular nation must first make an effort to prosecute. If Bush pardons Rummy, et al, then that would open the door wide to prosecution by an international tribunal.

If my analysis is wrong, or overly shallow, please let us all know.

Comment by Shirin | 2007-10-27 12:38:10

Doran, if memory serves, the international justice system will step in only if it is clear that the State will NOT prosecute its citizen. As long as the State is attempting to prosecute, the international justice system will not initiate prosecution.

 
 

Comment by Centrocitta | 2007-10-28 09:49:19

I think the Democrats must have a very good reason for impeachment to be off the table. And what would be the point in them revealing all their cards now and spoiling a big surprise?

 
 

Comment by Mr.Murder | 2007-10-27 02:11:46

Fredo will be a hand on the Bush compound in South America some day…

Larry,
The person best able to address the torture topic is Valerie. She can describe what actually Company training for the handling of potential assets entails.

Torture reinforces an opponent’s bias and actually makes them more likely to harden or even drives them to give false information that puts other innocent lives at risk.

Targeting the wrong places and people creates collateral damage and new enemies.

As for Rumsfailed, he’s the Taxi Driver for Baghdad. He’s taken Saddam’s place, we’re the White Saddam there. Institutional endowment of torture, for no other reason than to do it, because we can, is abhorrent to the notion of America.

Aside from a potential crush on Jodi Foster, what else does our Taxi Driver control in his DoD capacity(he still has a Pentagon office).

If he’s named overseas for indictment and is in any way connected to the gov’t it establishes an ugly chain of liability that the Executive must address soon.

Think about holdings of his being forfeited on the market. He had divest roughly a billion to become Secretary of Defense… does Bechtel really want to surrender large portions of its holdings abroad? Several competitors would gladly overtake their assets and subservice them now.

Comment by chris | 2007-10-27 02:34:58

Why would Valerie automatically be wise to torture topic? I’m not an expert on what Larry and crew did at the CIA, but there are so many facets, I doubt they all hijacked planes to panama to kill a president and topple Allende, etc etc.

I agree with the rest of your assessment about what torture can do. I examine my own experiences with overly oppressive tactics in my work place (nothing compares to torture) and can guess that it only hardens you to resist even more.

Hayden didn’t want to reveal secrets remember, like when he told us…”We use a technique like telling them we know all about them and describing enough to give them the impression that we know everything. Thus they feel overwhelmed as their story starts to break apart and they talk. This works.”

Larry, did you get to read the recent New Yorker article on “black sites”? what’s your take? thanks bro.

The Rumsfeld Indictment is long needed. I wish our country could see it for what it is, and arrest him, Cheney, Bush, Addelson, Wolfowitz, Abrams, Roger Ailes, Douglas Feith, MCRove, Libby, TraitorNovak, Powell, Fleischer, Snowe, Perino, McClellan, Myers, Pace, Bartlett, Gonzales, Tom Delay, FoxNews,…ok, you get the point.

I’d love to see a suit against FoxNews by the Wilsons for libel, against Kit Bond and Tom Davis for slander and defamation. Perhaps a liquidation of the Cheney assetts would be appropriate.

 

Comment by Shirin | 2007-10-27 02:44:12

Do you honestly believe that the United States has never used torture before, and that it was not approved at very, very high government levels?

Rumsfeld is not the first, and he will not be the last, unfortunately.

Comment by Montag | 2007-10-27 22:16:42

Shirin,
It’s well documented that during the horrorshow of the Philippine Insurrection at the turn of the 20th Century the U.S. Army not only committed massacres of civilians but engaged in torture as well. One tactic was to fill the victim’s stomach with water until it couldn’t hold any more. Note the similarity–”Iraq Insurgency,” “Philippine Insurgency.”

 
 
 

Comment by G Hazeltine | 2007-10-27 02:39:46

For some background on the neocon racism involved in all of this see Seymour Hersh:

http://www.thinkingpeace.com/pages/arts2/arts208.html

Another interesting mention of ‘cultural theory’:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050718/ghosh

The Patai book is truly vile. Were it written about Jews or Blacks the man would not have been able to show his face. About Arabs and Muslims, well, even when the book was published in 1973 this could pass in polite society. And still does. Amazing.

Comment by Shirin | 2007-10-27 03:01:55

I guess you are talking about Rafael Patai’s The Arab Mind. which, if it were not taken with such deadly seriousness, would actually be a hysterically funny satire on the western orientalist racism we get from the ilk of the absurd Bernard Lewis (who was actually quite a good historian once upon a time), and the even more absurdly self-important Thomas Friedman (overblown, puffed-up bag of hot gaseous substance that he is), et al.

I own a copy of the book, which I admit I have not read in its entirety because it takes entirely too much physical energy to fall onto the floor laughing hysterically and then rise up in righteous outrage only to fall laughing to the floor again, and then rise up again in outrage, and repeat ad infinitum. I keep it in my library, however, in case I ever gain too much weight to fit into my size fours, and need to embark on a weight loss program.

Comment by G Hazeltine | 2007-10-27 03:21:14

I didn’t find the book funny. Nor did Hersh I think:

“The notion that Arabs are particularly vulnerable to sexual humiliation became a talking point among pro-war Washington conservatives in the months before the March, 2003, invasion of Iraq. One book that was frequently cited was “The Arab Mind,” a study of Arab culture and psychology, first published in 1973, by Raphael Patai, a cultural anthropologist who taught at, among other universities, Columbia and Princeton, and who died in 1996. The book includes a twenty-five-page chapter on Arabs and sex, depicting sex as a taboo vested with shame and repression. “The segregation of the sexes, the veiling of the women . . . and all the other minute rules that govern and restrict contact between men and women, have the effect of making sex a prime mental preoccupation in the Arab world,” Patai wrote. Homosexual activity, “or any indication of homosexual leanings, as with all other expressions of sexuality, is never given any publicity. These are private affairs and remain in private.” The Patai book, an academic told me, was “the bible of the neocons on Arab behavior.” In their discussions, he said, two themes emerged—”one, that Arabs only understand force and, two, that the biggest weakness of Arabs is shame and humiliation.”

Not so funny, really.

Comment by Shirin | 2007-10-27 12:53:56

Perhaps I did not make myself clear, so I will try to clarify:

The book itself is hysterical if read as satyr. In fact, it satyrises itself in addition to the entire genre of thinking to which it belongs.

The book is not hysterical if read as a serious academic work.

The fact that the book is taken seriously by so many, and particularly by so many in power is not funny.

The use to which the book has been put by the “commanders” of the “war on terror” - which is what Seymour Hersch was addressing (and GEEEEEZ, will someone PLEASE teach him how to pronounce Iraq and Iran?) - is not funny.

I guess my joke about the physical exercise involved in reading Patai’s book fell flat, at least with you.

Some of us have different takes on what is funny than others. A lot of us laughed until we fell out of our chairs over Colin Powell’s “intercepted communications” supposedly proving that Iraq had WMD’s. It was difficult to explain why it was so funny to wide-eyed, gullible Americans, who had so willingly taken it as evidence of a deadly threat to Life, Liberty And The American Way™.

Comment by Montag | 2007-10-27 22:35:51

Shirin,
When the Irish Catholics came to America they were the lowest of the low. A couple of Irish Vaudvillians did a popular act where the male actors appeared in drag as drunken Irish maids. The Irish audiences loved it because it took the sting out of the stereotype to see it acted by Irish actors. But the actors did it too long. A new generation was born who had seized the opportunities offered, however grudgingly, and were upwardly mobile. The act performed by the Vaudevillians was an unwelcome reminder of where they had BEEN, not where they were now. So one night the actors started their tipsy Irish maid act as usual and the audience REVOLTED. They booed, threw rotten fruit and vegetables, and in general told the actors to STUFF IT! The stereotype depicted on the stage had started as an insult, but had degenerated into an exercise in bad manners.

 
 

Comment by Teaeopy | 2007-10-27 20:12:43

Isn’t it bizarre that credence was given to the notion that sexual humiliation and religious desecration would somehow soften up subjects of interrogation and soon have them gushing actionable intelligence.

The “gloves-off” innovators became expert not at extracting intelligence, but at making enemies.

Comment by G Hazeltine | 2007-10-27 20:44:33

Dr Stern in his comment below says:

“In retrospect, it smacks of a coordinated effort to lay the groundwork for a premeditated plan to construct a torture regime as a defining feature of this new “war”. Perhaps meaningful intelligence was never the intended product of this plan. Perhaps it was just fear and intimidation - at home as much as abroad.”

Especially for Arab Americans and others who support non neocon allied elements in the Middle East. Speak out for the children of Gaza? Demand that Israel supply the maps of its cluster bomb attacks in the final hours of the war last summer? Contribute to legal democratic forces in Lebanon that the administration, and many Democrats oppose? Speak out in a meaningful way as Americans against the destruction of our constitution and traditions of Liberty? Those images hang over us.

 

Comment by Shirin | 2007-10-28 00:06:38

What I find even more bizarre, teaeopy, is that these clowns actually seem to think that only Arabs, due to their peculiar culture, react negatively to such things as sexual humiliation. Do they really believe that Americans are not also vulnerable to sexual humiliation, or that Americans do not feel negatively about it? Do they believe that it is something peculiarly unique about Arab culture and not something that is universally human to dislike being sexually humiliated?

 
 
 

Comment by Montag | 2007-10-27 22:18:55

Shirin,
Then for goodness sake don’t open Mein Kampf. “Turgid” doesn’t even begin to describe the effort required to read it.

 
 
 

Comment by cruzdelsur | 2007-10-27 02:45:26

” And if karma and justice are linked, Rummy will be tried and convicted.”

That is how I feel about Kissinger. Hopefully they will be roomies…

 

Comment by Retired | 2007-10-27 02:53:03

I was assigned to work with Rumsfeld for a bit in the mid-1980s. Organizationally, he is quite talented. His problem is that he doesn’t have a sufficient moral compass to function above the middle management level. He would be fine as a management analyst who didn’t have the authority to implement his plans before they could be corrected for reality by someone who understood what America was all about. Regretably, we have all been witness to what happens when he is given full authority to carry out his brainstorms without proper oversight. Perhaps most disturbing is his ability to find and exploit multiple levels of corruptable subordinates. Before this administration, I would’ve never guessed his skill in that endevor.

Comment by Montag | 2007-10-27 22:21:12

Civil War general Ambrose Burnside was like that. When commanding the Army of the Potomac at Fredericksburg he threw his men at the Confederate high ground like pebbles at a brick wall. He had simply been promoted above his competence.

 
 

Comment by Shirin | 2007-10-27 03:08:59

…what America was all about.

I believe you are referring to what America is SUPPOSED to be all about. What America is really all about in the context of this topic has been something quite different than that for a considerable period of time. The only significant difference between this administration and previous (and future) ones, both Republican and Democrat, is the stunningly brazen, in-everyone’s-face style with which this regime pursues what other administrations have gone after in more subdued ways.

 

Comment by SPIIDERWEB™ | 2007-10-27 03:17:32

This is, of course, good news, but its sad other countries have to clean up the filth of the US.

 

Comment by Deighved H Stern MD | 2007-10-27 06:14:53

I have not seen much mention of this - maybe it is because my memory is faulty, or perhaps is is not important. But as I remember it, several talking heads were immediately promoting the idea of torture being a justifiable method to employ in the “war on terror” within a couple of days after 9/11.

I could be wrong on the timing, but not by a lot. I can recall how horrified I was at the suggestion, puzzled by any lack of serious counter-argument (perhaps because no one took these professional nuts seriously) and semi-secure in the knowledge that nothing would come of it. After all, it was common knowledge for many years that torture does not produce useful intelligence.

In retrospect, it smacks of a coordinated effort to lay the groundwork for a premeditated plan to construct a torture regime as a defining feature of this new “war”. Perhaps meaningful intelligence was never the intended product of this plan. Perhaps it was just fear and intimidation - at home as much as abroad.

Someone please wake me. I am having the worst nightmare of my life.

Comment by bmobley | 2007-10-27 13:04:10

Deighved H Stern, MD
You are correct in your recollection. I also remember such discussions. Mainly on Fox News but on other channels as well.
It was at that time that I observed what I at that time thought was the crowning horror of my life. I saw a man whom I had previously considered a hero of mine, a man for whom I had considerable respect defend the idea that “under certain circumstances, one would be justified in the use of torture”. I was aghast! Could I have heard him right? Could I have misunderstood? No, it was Alan Derschiwtz (forgive the misspelling). ALAN DERSHIWITZ! The great defender of human rights saying “it’s OK to torture! Well, if the “circumstances” demanded it.
And remember Cheney, on I believe, Russertt’s Sunday AM show, talking about the possibility of the need to explore the “dark side” in our prosecution of the “WOT”. That comment is probably the root of the Darth Vader comparisons. And he has lived up to that image even more successfully than even I ever imagined.

Comment by Shirin | 2007-10-28 00:16:59

Alan Dershowitz a “great defender of human rights”? ALAN DERSHOWITZ?!!!!! Are you joking?!

WHOSE human rights does this man defend? Certainly not the Palestinians’ - or maybe he just does not see Palestinians as human beings.

Oh, don’t let me get started on Alan Dershowitz as a “great defender of human rights”.

 
 
 

Comment by Ron England | 2007-10-27 10:08:27

Larry,
I was commenting on this accountability of our leaders indirectly just last night.

http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2007/10/26/123221/85/529#c529

Tom please turn your talent to writing (0 / 0)
about something real. Edwards is a lost cause.

Most of us just don’t care what he says.

The only reason I put a comment up is that every day, or night there is always, ALWAYS a recommend diary about Edwards.

It short changes other authors who never get a good or important dairy posted to the recommended section.

That sucks.

How about writing about the Consitiution and where each and everyone of those above candidates stands?

Where do they stand on impeachment?

Where do they stand on criminal prosecution of all Bush appointees that have commited crimes? Will they enforce the rule of law? Will they go after the criminals? Will they restore of Consititution’s Greatness?

There is some very important issues that these people must answer and/or asked about.

If we elect some dumbass that “Can’t We Just Get Along” is their goal then this country, this nation, and our Constitution is a total lost.

Every freedom we enjoyed before, and our ability to pursue happiness is gone.

We need reason people, like give them “Hell Harry”, or Ted Roosevelt, or Franklin. Hell, General Patton had the backbone necessary to kick some ass and do the right thing.

“Demand the Truth!”

Comment by Teaeopy | 2007-10-27 20:26:03

So should only frontrunners get press and blog coverage? We’ll be in sadder shape if that happens.

 
 

Comment by Connie L | 2007-10-27 11:24:04

This war and the tragedies of this war may finally begin to dawn on some people after viewing this film. I only wish people like Colin Powell would have stepped forward before things got so bad. The generals who retired to expose this mess have been marginlized by the corporations running the vast media. Is it too late to save our country and its reputation.? I don’t know but somebody has to pay for this mess. Starting with Rumsfield and Gonzales sounds good to me but please don’t stop there.

Comment by Shirin | 2007-10-28 00:18:54

Colin Powell DID step forward, and played the role he has always played in the past. Anyone remember his role in the coverup of the My Lai massacre?

Comment by Fred C. Dobbs | 2007-10-28 11:07:29

ABSOLUTELY!

Didn’t know you were that old, Shirin, but thanks for pointing out the 400 kg gorilla in ex-Democrat Powell’s living room!

To date, Powell has been the most successful MSM itieration of the, “Magic Negro,” before he squandered his inflated reputation in front of the UN and became a poltical punch line…

Comment by Shirin | 2007-10-28 13:09:40

Inflated reputation - yes, that says it quite well.

 
 
 
 

Comment by mudkitty | 2007-10-27 11:29:36

Taxi to the dark side? More like a limo…

All this means is that Rummy will never again be able to set foot in France - much to his loss. There will never be an extradition from the U.S. to France, for Rummy - he’s just to powerful and connected.

So France will be able to try Rummy “in absentia” - and more truth will be revealed, thank goodness; but be assured, all, that Rummy will die comfortably, of old age, in his own bed, and will never have to answer for his crimes.

Comment by Teaeopy | 2007-10-27 20:34:25

Just when Sarkozy made it seem okay to eat French fries again in the White House, they’re rocked by unwelcome news out of France. Let’s see, that leaves tater tots, hash browns, baked potatoes, …

 
 

Comment by Donovan Fraser | 2007-10-27 12:31:54

one can only hope rummy and all these MURDERERS will meet their maker in the after life. God will be pissed.
I can hear it now…

God: “what have you done that is pleasing in my sight?”

Rummy: I freed the eyerackies from the bondage of tyrany and from the ever bothersome bondage of breathing”

God:”WTF? hey Satan, get hitler up here to give another one of these assholes a ride across the river STYX.”

Comment by mudkitty | 2007-10-28 12:00:22

There are no gods, so that won’t happen.

 
 

Comment by taters | 2007-10-27 12:37:34

They all remember Pinochet.
Great thread Larry.
I’m sure the name Hans Scharff rings a bell with a few posters here.

Hanns-Joachim Gottlob Scharff (December 16, 1907 – September 10, 1992) was a German Luftwaffe interrogator during the Second World War. He has been called the “Master Interrogator” of the Luftwaffe and possibly all of Nazi Germany; he has also been praised for his contribution in shaping U.S. interrogation techniques after the war. Merely an Obergefreiter (the equivalent of a senior lance corporal), he was charged with interrogating every German-captured American fighter pilot during the war after his becoming an interrogation officer in 1943. He is highly praised for the success of his techniques, especially considering he never used physical means to obtain the required information. No evidence exists he even raised his voice in the presence of a prisoner of war (POW). Scharff’s interrogation techniques were so effective that he was often called upon to assist other German interrogators in their questioning of bomber pilots and aircrews, including those crews and fighter pilots from countries other than the United States. Additionally, Scharff was charged with questioning V.I.P.s (Very Important Prisoners) that funneled through the interrogation center, namely senior officers and world-famous fighter aces.

After the end of WWII, Scharff was invited by the United States Air Force to give lectures on his interrogation techniques and first-hand experiences. The U.S. military later incorporated Scharff’s methods into its curriculum at its interrogation schools. After the Abu Ghraib prison scandal was revealed in the early 2000s, Scharff’s name was again brought to the forefront as investigators questioned why his methods, which continue to be taught in military intelligence and interrogation schools, had been ignored in favor of more physically abusive tactics by U.S. military personnel and U.S. defense contractors alike to obtain desired information from Iraqi detainees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Scharff

Here’s Larry’s buddy/colleague Milt Bearden NYT piece on interrogation via Pat Lang’s Sic Semper Tyrannis.

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2006/09/milt_bearden_on.html#more

And an excellent article from Col. Lang

Lessons from Vietnam in how to ‘flip’ an enemy

The turncoats’ knowledge of the enemy’s methods and habits proved invaluable.
By Patrick Lang

ALEXANDRIA, VA.

Long ago and across the world in Vietnam, I had the job of persuading enemy soldiers to leave their government to join “our side” in the long struggle there against revolutionary socialism. Some of my experiences could be replicated in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan, although the recent news makes me wonder if it’s still possible to bring people over to our side.

The names we hear daily in the news - “Haditha,” and “Hamandiya” among several others - represent serious investigations into atrocities allegedly committed by American troops. It’s impossible to say now what the outcome of these investigations will be. Many of the allegations involve the treatment of Iraqi and Afghan civilians. Some include people who were clearly combatants on the other side in the war.

The responsibility of our soldiers - or anyone’s soldiers - to safeguard non-combatants is crystal clear in our law and in international law. The problem of how to deal with enemy fighters is another and more complicated issue.

At the commencement of this war on terror the Bush administration decided that enemy fighters would not be considered “prisoners of war,” although they would be afforded comparable protections. This judgment, in my view, has made possible the questionable internment and interrogation facility at Guantánamo, “rendition” of prisoners to countries that are known to torture prisoners, such as Egypt, and a general lowering of standards in the treatment of prisoners in places such as the Abu Ghraib prison complex. From personal experience as a military intelligence officer who dealt with prisoners of war in Vietnam, I can tell you that the rules were quite different.
In Vietnam, enemy prisoners of war were treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions and were given the POW designation. Many people have seen photographs of American or South Vietnamese soldiers with prisoners from the other side, the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army. Although there were undoubtedly instances in which individual Americans abused prisoners, I would defy anyone to provide photographic evidence of such abuse in a facility for the detention of enemy prisoners of war in Vietnam.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0707/p09s02-coop.htm

Comment by cruzdelsur | 2007-10-28 13:11:20

http://www.frif.com/new2004/squa.html

DEATH SQUADRONS: The French school

“DEATH SQUADRONS also shows how, during the 1960’s, the French were instrumental in training U.S. officers at Fort Bragg on counter-insurgency techniques that were later used by the U.S. military in Vietnam”…”Moreover, the film probes the French role in training U.S. armed forces, covetous of the Europeans’ superior expertise, on counterinsurgency methods later unleashed in Vietnam ”

So why did the US need to learn the brutal techniques used in Algiers???

Comment by Fred C. Dobbs | 2007-10-28 23:28:28

Hearty dose of Irony there, considering that the French had so recenty done SO well with their tactics in Algeria and Indochina.

Much like using Liz Taylor for your Marriage Counselor…

 
 
 

Comment by Peter Warren | 2007-10-27 12:45:23

Larry,
I’m starting to think that the only real cleansing of this cesspool would be a “people power” revolution from outside the existing power structure and a public reckoning ala Nuremberg with the criminality that’s now being integrated into our public policy at every level.
We’re too far gone for a Lee Hamilton/James Baker co-production;neither party, as thoroughly complicit as they are in these outrages against the Constitution and morality,would agree to or would survive the kind of scrutiny and truth-telling required.

Comment by Delia | 2007-10-27 18:31:21

I’m afraid you’re right. We’re also a long way from the sort of event that would thoroughly discredit this crew with the vast majority of the American people and convince them how thoroughly immoral and un-Constitutional their actions have been.

 
 

Comment by Grandma M | 2007-10-27 12:52:52

Ah.. we can only hope - heard on the radio there are also charges brought against Rummy in Norway and Argentina.

By the way - just how many cells do they have available in the Hague??

Comment by Leslie | 2007-10-27 19:29:08

They’ll need quite a few.

 
 

Comment by jcricket | 2007-10-27 13:53:54

Logically, any investigation into Rumsfeld’s (alleged) torture policies will draw in Cheney and Bush. Since the investigations will not be conducted by our DOJ, there is a good chance that someone with integrity will be trying to get answers and information. Of course, all attempts at getting information stateside will be stonewalled if this is done with Bush still in the WH.

Even so, there is enough information abroad to give an investigation steam.

I wonder if the compound in Uruguay is large enough for all the Blackwater folks Bush is going to need for “security” in the long run?

 

Comment by taters | 2007-10-27 13:54:17

Let’s face it, there is something inherently appealling abouttorture to these miscreants. The sadistic bastards can hardly hide their glee.

http://www.mcs.drexel.edu/~gbrandal/Illum_html/Torquemada.html

Refusing to confess at the first hearing, saw heretics being remanded to the prisons for several months. The dungeons were situated underground, so that the outcries of the subject might not reach other parts of the building. In some medieval cells, the inauspicious were bound in stocks or chains, unable to move about and forced to sleep standing up or on the ground. In some cases there was no light or ventilation, inmates were generally starved and kept in solitary confinement in the dark and allowed no contact with the outside world, including that of their own family. In 1252, Pope Innocent IV officially authorised the creation of the horrifying Inquisition torture chambers. It also included anew perpetual imprisonment or death at the stake without the bishops consent. Acquittal of the accused was now virtually impossible. Thus, with a license granted by the pope himself, Inquisitors were free to explore the depths of horror and cruelty.

http://www.geocities.com/christprise/holy-inquisitions.html

 

Comment by Linda | 2007-10-27 18:51:51

These attempts at human rights prosecution are valuable even if unsucessful. Scumbags like Kissinger, Pinochet and Bush may face a realistic chance of being held accountable for their crimes when they travel abroad. More and more, they will become prisoners in their own country. The downside is, we’ll be stuck with them staying here all the time. Unless we start enforcing human rights law and the Constitution too.

 

Comment by Leslie | 2007-10-27 19:27:56

Let’s hope this is the start of a trend against other figures in the Bush administration, such as Bush and Cheney themselves. That they’ll all join a list of figures who can’t leave the country without risking prison.

 

Comment by anon paranoid | 2007-10-27 23:27:51

If Der Fuhrer Bush allows elections and don’t enact Martial Law he will be putting himself and the rest of his Nazi’s in jeopardy of being labeled as enemy combatants under the MCA of 2006.

Granting pardons will not prevent this from occurring and I for one don’t believe that he will put himself at risk of arrest.

It would be to dangerous for him to allow elections to go forward because of this. The same applies if impeachment were to go forward.

I think impeachment was taken off the table because of this also. They gave him a power no one should have, neither Republican Presidents or Democratic Presidents.

Once they gave him this power he now had his Enabling Act. The Enabling Act to Hitler is no different the the MCA of 2006 to the Decider.

I’m glad to see that someone in the International Community is stepping up and doing, or attempting to do the right thing.

My two cents worth.

God Bless.

 

Comment by Fred C. Dobbs | 2007-10-28 11:15:15

Taxi to the Dark Side?

Why not a Limo to the Gallows?

Not only would I pay a month’s income to drive same, I’d pony up a year’s pre-tax for the privilege of kicking the handle to the trap door…

Comment by Thinker | 2007-10-29 23:20:49

LOL @ FCD. I cannot add a thing!

 
 

Comment by Leslie | 2007-10-28 17:59:07

Does anyone know when Taxi to the Dark Side will be released? The link showed the trailer, but I didn’t see a release date.

 

Comment by Thinker | 2007-10-29 22:55:58

France may be serving their usefulness in this shoddy game, Larry, but they are another nasty piece in the nasty puzzle of imposing Hitler’s model.

It is o.k. to ridicule someone for offering an outlandish account that denies the slaughter of Armenians at the hand of Turkey, but to jail them creates a greater transgression than the arguer.

The fiction called the holocaust, I have to be careful here, with so many tempramental folks watching - the pure theory [effectively baseless] argument formula’d around American WWII propaganda and now labelled the Holocaust is upheld by Austria and ruthlessly defended. To which end, if anyone disagrees with Lipstadt’s presentation of events and promotes their dissenting views widely can, and possibly will, be jailed. [In fairness to Lipstadt, she does not endorse the witchhunt on dissenters]

That is a summary of Hitler’s ethos. The very part of Hitler’s deceit which eroded any intellectual comeback against his crazy policies are being witnessed in France and Austria, by jailing dissenters. Where and what next is beyond criticism? As we see with the holocaust, supporting evidence is not required when the subject matter is emotionally compelling - it fits the bill emotionally, as it were.

My interest is why France have been used for the purposes you have kindly outlined, Larry. They have been served up as the bogie-man - anti-american, by Bush. Is this another play on patriotism and an attempt to devalue any say Europe might have?

 

Pingback by Rumsfeld flees France | hell's handmaiden | 2007-11-10 12:57:58

[...] Andrew Sullivan mentions the case and a good post on the subject can be found at No Quarter, where Larry Johnson writes, “One thing is certain, Rummy is now part of an exclusive but growing club of Amcits who face legal pe…” [...]

 

Trackback by Homemade Porn Clip | 2008-04-29 13:50:55

Homemade Porn Clip

Its interesting, THX

 

Comment by AlbertoWF | 2008-10-05 03:41:15

 

Trackback by arguer | 2008-11-15 17:15:03

arguer…

Applying a finance company might surely help buyers to fix all existing outstanding credit cards and variant old bank bills too….

 

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