Very interesting, ew. Is conformism really the driving force of humanity? As long as everyone else is going along, who am I to question? It takes a rare person to go against the tide.

And in the category of glib satisfaction, let’s not forget TFSGOTP.

“The problem with moral authority,” he said, was “people who should know better, like yourself, siding with the assholes, to put it crudely.”

Another thought. It is easy to feel sympathy for England and Harman, even though something is definitely missing there. Not as much for Beaver. It makes me think of “the circle of guilt.” Who is inside, who is outside? How close does the circle get before one feels one’s own responsibility?

This banality is the reason we had the Nuremburg trials. We understand that the biggest abuses of power come from the top, that those people manipulate the rest of us with known and new tools, and that failing to hold them accountable means that the worst aspects of human nature will run free.

thanks ew - you’ve written an important piece that i hope is not overlooked because it is saturday. the narratives we write for ourselves seldom include the perspective of the people we’ve harmed.

i read the sands’ piece before starting the yoo brief - being familiar with “lawless world” i thought the vanity fair essay would help prepare me for yoo. but i think nothing could, i still haven’t gotten through it… as i can’t seem to read more than a couple of pages at a time.

last night i transcribed a bit from a talk mark danner gave some time after debating yoo. i think it helps put rummy’s comment in some perspective. here’s the comment i left on ES’s late late nite thread (hope you don’t mind that i cross post it here):

…..

i just finished a quick transcription to share. this is from from mark danner’s talk, “Into the Light of Day: Human Rights after Abu Ghraib” at stanford, 2006. available for download at itunes. (this talk was after danner’s debate with yoo).

long time standing - this technique is described as among of the most effective. prisoners are forced to stand handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an i-bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. exhaustion and sleep depravation are effective in yielding confessions….

forced standing is a very old technique. the soviets used it, and the cia studied very intensively soviet techniques of interrogation. i want to read a paragraph of what forced standing does, physically… and remember that it’s approved by the cia for up to 40 hours.

another form that is widely used is requiring the prisoner to stand throughout the interrogation session or to maintain some other physical position which becomes painful. this is the cia’s study of the kgb, where some of these techniques come from. this, like other features of the kgb procedure is a form of physical torture in spite of the fact that the prisoners and kgb officers alike do not ordinarily perceive it as such. any fixed position which is maintained over a long period of time ultimately produces excruciating pain.

now, forced standing in particular. after 18-24 hours of continuous standing, there is an accumulation of fluid in the tissues of the legs. this dependent edema is produced by the extravasation of the fluid from the blood vessels. the ankles and feet of the prisoner swell to twice their normal circumference the edema may rise up the legs as high as the middle of the thighs. the skin becomes tense and intensely painful. large blisters develop which break and exude watery serum. the accumulation of fluid in the legs produces impairment of the circulation. the heart rate increases, fainting may occur. eventually there is total renal shutdown, urine production ceases, urea and other metabolites accumulate in the blood. delirium, disorientation, fear, delusions, visual hallucinations and psychoses is produced by a combination of circulatory impairment, lack of sleep and uremia.

danner goes into many other much worse things, including descriptions of prisoners being sodomized. but i wanted to share this bit because it highlights, for me, what the language we use (”enhanced interrogation” “long time standing”) only serve to obscure.

and this is what yoo was attempting to provide legal cover for.

…..

I also hope this important post won’t be overlooked on the weekend. Suggest it be cross-posted over @ FDL proper.

Not really OT- may I recommend some vids I just finished watching of an all day conference @ Seattle University School of Law on the topic “What is to be Done with “Terrorists?” Hard hitting on Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, Hamdan, & a slew of related material covered by several diverse expert panels. Former USA John McKay, who now teaches @ Seattle U Law School, moderates the conclusory panel:

http://medialaw.seattleu.edu/p.....events.htm

3 - Yes. That’s why I hold the lawyers who have over and over and over and over enabled and covered up and conspired the most accountable. As the record emerges from CIA and the active military, even Presidential directives and orders, standing alone, where not enough to enable the worst of the behaviors. It took the assistance and leadership of the Dept of Justice to really pave the way to “legalized depravity.” Apparently, the NSA under Hayden and used to the protections of blanket secrecy, was more malleable to initiating felonies against Americans without as much legal support and authority, but still, in the end, DOJ was the needle in the addict’s vein and they remain there today.

Part of the problem for England and Harman was the setting in which they operated in and of itself. As low ranking women surrounded by very hyped up guys who had been told they were in a no rules setting, the prospects of not going along aren’t pretty and the military reinforcement of bonding within units and the us v. them issues are all pressures.

Still, while we see the sympathetic stories over and over here, what we never do get here is the same kind of exposure and profiling of the victims. Harman’s story, for example, highlights that even after he was found to be innocent, “Gilligan” remained a detainee. Like many. She also mentions one of the stories that was barely touched upon here - the routine taking of family members as hostages to get adult males (whether innocent or not) in the family to turn themselves in.

The reprucussions for the women that US forces snatched as hostages and took off to places like Abu Ghraib and other facilities was a big issue in non-US press, but not much of even a flutter here. And the children who were taken to be used as hostages to get their parents as well - Harman mentions that in one of her emails, that it’s sad the kids are there just because we are trying to get their father. It’s sad and it’s a war crime and no one every investigate or pursued it in any way. The Harman piece also refers to the man who was tortured to death and whose body appears in one of her pictures. She ends up with convictions because she took pictures, but the men who were involved in the torture death itself - nothing.

For Beaver, I have a hard time saying much. She wasn’t in the same physical threat situation as the other two. My first exposure to her role at all was reading her memo and, like Sands I would agree that: “Time and distance do not improve the quality of the advice. I thought it was awful when I first read it, and awful when I reread it.”

For a woman who visited Nuremberg, the essence of her opinion is more startling. She basically adopts the Nuremberg defense, saying that things that are clearly violations of the UCMJ and Geneva Conventions are acceptable if authorized by order of a more senior soldiers. It is tough to be a younger woman, surrounded by the likes of people like Haynes and Addington and Rumsfeld breathing down you neck - but young women attorneys deal with this kind of thing all the time, in lots of settings, and you choose who you are each time it happens.

It’s never easy to be the 25 yo ‘girl’ in a room full of 40 and up guys who have so much power that it wafts around them and changes the air in the room when they enter. It’s not easy to be the young guy in that setting either for that matter. You either stand your ground or you do something else for a living. You may not stand it with aplomb and you may not stand it well, and you may be left behind on it as the testosterone tide rolls out, but if your path is just to be an enabler, you don’t cling to the pretense that you are a lawyer.

Every lawyer has to tell clients no and, sometimes more difficult, they have to tell colleagues no. It’s not nearly as much fun as being voted Ms. Popularity, but it’s the job. It may leave you with your voice shaken and trembling and your heart beating a thousand beats a minute, and it may keep you up for nights, worrying about the consequences of drawing the line in the sand, but it’s part of the job.

That doesn’t excuse anyone up the chain who didn’t override the Beaver memo (as a matter of fact, didn’t Haynes promote her after it?) or who pressured the outcome, etc. but the fact that there are higher ups is sometimes just used as a shield to try to deflect personal responsiblity as well.

It would be nice if there were a piece out there to include another portrait - Townsend’s - to round out the review. Was she part of the delegation that went down to observe at GITMO?

For new readers, the phrase “the banality of evil” was coined by Hannah Arendt, a brilliant political philosopher and German emigre who covered the belated 1963 war crimes trial of Adolf Eichmann. (Belated because Eichmann had escaped to South America after the war and lived in hiding for nearly twenty years.) Eichmann was “the simple bureaucrat” whose considerable logistical skills enabled the Nazi’s complex, resource-intensive civilian murder machine operate so smoothly in the midst of all-out war.

The simplicity and irony in Arendt’s phrase perfectly captures her derision at Eichmann’s defense — which included “I was just following orders”, “I didn’t make decisions, I was only lowly bureaucrat”, and the familiar, “Who could have known the evil that was done because of my efficiency?”. It equally captures the potential for evil that continues to exist in the most unassuming places, even the offices of mid-level government lawyers who are only trying to protect us from further harm.

That’s why I hold the lawyers who have over and over and over and over enabled and covered up and conspired the most accountable.

i wouldn’t leave out the psychologists and (apparently) doctors who had to review and approve all “category 2″ and “category 3″ “interrogations”

Fran Townsend? Interesting suggestion. Though from what I’ve heard there would be little ambivalence there either.

Also for newbies, there’s this:

It’s weird, blogging the Libby trial. I’m putting out details at such a tremendous rate all day that I have a real hard time getting the big picture–though I do get that by the time I talk it through with others here. But I do feel like I’m missing the middle ground.

Except relating to one thing. David Addington. By far the biggest surprise to me, in terms of personal impressions, is David Addington.

As I’ve been reminding at every opportunity, David Addington is Mr. Unitary Executive, the guy who has provided legal justification for many of Cheney’s biggest power grabs: torture, extraordinary rendition, domestic spying, and so on.

I truly expected his interviews to be terribly hostile. I truly expected to see Addington bristle at every question. But that didn’t happen.

To me, David Addington has all the mannerisms and look of a physics or computer science professor. He has the beard of a professor, the modest (at least looking) suit, and he’s kind of big-shouldered.

I found his response to questions even more interesting. He simply answered them, with no hesitation. He was apt to offer up information rather than hold it back. He would wander on and on, explaining all the details surrounding something (I remember his description of various classifications, for example, as this long conversation, “and then … and then … and then”). He is so obviously steeped in this world and these regulations that he just holds forth on them, with almost no filter.

And there seemed to be no effort to protect Libby–or even Cheney. This became most clear when Fitzgerald started talking about the document on which Cheney mentioned Bush (then crossed it out). Fitzgerald’s point was that OVP had stamped a classification that is not really a classification on these documents–Treated as Top Secret/SCI–that is, as Addington explained, not really a classification, “treated as.” Pretty damning stuff, catching Cheney and Libby protecting their own deliberations by classifying the hell out of them, inventing new classifications.

And Addington just described this as he had everything else, wandering on in a seemingly endless mumble. He showed no hint of trying to hide this information, no hint of embarrassment that the guy who is, after all, still his boss was trying to pull a fast one to protect his own actions.

Not what I expected.

i wonder how much of the ambivalence is simply a reflection of the ambivalence of the audience? none of the stories seem to me to describe a person with much ability to see the world independently through their own eyes.

but the real problem is there is no “enhanced interrogation’, you get less information, the information you do get is not likely to be nearly as accurate

the real purpose of torture is to create fear, to create unrest, to make certain the country you are occupying does not accept you as benevolent

they want unending war, they invited insurgency and they knew it

this was the very purpose

Marty Lederman and Eric Posner are arguing about the banality of John Yoo’s legal arguments and the bona fides of his competence and good faith. This comment from Marty, I think, is the better view and accords with the arguments we’re making here:

OK, but what if this had been an honest, open effort [by Yoo] to press and instantiate a radically new constitutional vision? Would it then be legitimate? I don’t think so. Why not? Well, for one thing, many of the worst arguments in the memos are simply awful, tendentious readings of statutes and treaties—i.e., of legislative intent (such as the notion that Congress did not intend to prohibit the military from pouring corrosive acid on detainees in wartime)….The arguments are simply implausible, radically incomplete, and dishonest….

[S]ome historical examples of “legal-craft error” are the result not only of incompetence and bad faith (although those are, sure enough, the main ingredients here), but also of deliberate envelope-pushing, for the very purpose of trying to establish new constitutional norms. To what extent is it permissible for Executive branch lawyers to press such views, not in legal briefs, nor in congressional testimony, but in OLC opinions that will effectively govern the conduct of the Executive branch? Is such a strategy consistent with the President’s constitutional duty to take care that the law is faithfully executed?…[No.] If it’s ever acceptable for OLC to push an unorthodox view, it is so only where it does so publicly and forthrightly….

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blo.....fault.aspx

But I think that’s a fundamentally human defense mechanism.

Not that I’m trying to excuse them, but I suspect that Rummy, at least, manages to rationalize his advocacy of torture through his almost constant sense of irony. You saw it in all his interviews–even while Rummy was talking about the most serious thing, he’d still be treating himself as an ironic figure. And that’s what we see when he signs the authorization to torture–more self-ironization.

Addington, I think, is something different. In a longer version of the post on his testimony at the Libby trial, I wondered whether he didn’t have Aspergers. I know nothing about it, but he acted like I’ve always seen descriptions of people with Aspergers. He had absolutely no filter–none. It was almost hypnotizing to watch him.

The fantasy of technological solutions to human economic impediments might issue of a cultural trop supporting a left brain bias secondary to the pathologies of financialization. Cf. the systemic distribution of surplus value in media, the closing of the frontiers and the mechanization of work. Why else would soviet style management techniques find such appeal among a political vanguard?

Rene Grousset in his epic studies of Chinese and Roman annals to portray eurasian tribalism notes a decline of brutality with the propogation of Christianity and Buddhism. Leaving the issues of fundamentalism aside, could these studies suggest the cultural power of enlightened principle?

Still the conflation of tribal emotions and rational education historically has a mixed record especially if fear obscures the inherent benefits of rational enlightenment.

Perhaps a kind of constitutional spiritism, a revival of the political interests that advanced both Abraham Lincoln and Madame Blavatsky to the popular forefront in the 19th Century yet is the solution. This kind of consciousness may be the one ultimately receptive to devices like the feuilleton and the kind of cultural unraveling that precipitates a water shed moment like the Dreyfus Affair. And I only mention these things in the context of the challenge of framing suggested through these threads in the face of the ultra vires conversions of Constitutional Sovereignty noted in the new revelations pointing beyond “a few bad apples.” The caveat of course is the experience of mythic propoganda in the rise of fascism.

What is the public left with but banality if the mythos of frontier prosperity is subsumed in pharmaceutical sales, day trading, river boat gambling, financial arbitrage, mandatory insurance, mirror-game politics, internet prostitution rings and money lending? But there yet is the potential of a Yankee explosion toward a vast cybernetic exploitation of solar and bio/solar energetics (contrast this to the bionecrology of the petroleum trade)and the multi-cultural transcendant civil potential born of the 14th Amendment that distinguishes our potential. And probably yet enough residual surplus remaing to continue to permit the free time required for extracurricular education and commenting.

I think that’s a fundamentally human defense mechanism.

yes, to a greater or lesser extent. that’s why i wrote that:

the narratives we write for ourselves seldom include the perspective of the people we’ve harmed.

and i include myself here… but with time and distance one hopes for a bit of introspection/reflection to temper the defenses?

That’s interesting you would think Addington might have Aspergers syndrome. I have a friend who is an art designer for films & tv. He has Aspergers syndrome, as does his nine yr. old son. The guy’s brilliant, very detached & analytical. Keeps finely detailed set drawings in his head to be quickly & finely drawn on demand when you ask, to everyone’s amazement. And no filter whatsoever, which has led to some extremely amusing job interviews where others laugh or squirm while he remains nonplussed.

Personally I really like talking w/him, though mutual friends can find him a bit off-putting.

One of the conclusions of the investigation into the My Lai Massacre was that Lt. Calley was an Officer who had no leadership fiber in him. He should never have received a Commission to begin with.

On that day, Calley lost control, joined the madness himself, and - over 400 dead women, children and old men later - he claimed he was only following orders.

Calley didn’t have ‘the right stuff’ to Lead soldiers into the barbarity of combat, and bring them back with their honor and dignity intact.

Since you are looking at the roles of uniformed military women in the Torture Program, here’s an Army Captain, Carolyn Wood, who was featured in the BBC Documentary “Taxi Cab to the Dark Side” - the story of Dilawar’s murder.

I don’t know if she’s as banal as England, Harman or Beaver, but Wood, like Calley, certainly doesn’t have ‘the right stuff’ - the ability to tell right from wrong, even under fire - as a Leader. I guess that’s why she’s a Torturer…

Perhaps one of the historical truths of Abu Ghraib will be that whereas Calley’s Lack of Moral Fiber was ’seen’ as the Exception in Vietnam, today his excuse for Officers - like Wood and her entire Chain of Command - is now ’seen’ as the Rule - Nuremburg be damned!

We know enough today that it is obvious that England, Harman, Beaver, and Wood were Empowered in their Depravity by none other than Bush and Rumsfeld, Addington/Yoo/Haynes, and the Chain of Command that reached all the way down to all those who were ‘green-lighted’ to Torture.

Like Yoo said - It’s not that interrogators “Should” but they “Can” - without fear of Legal reprisal - because it’s not Torture unless Bush says it is, and Bush is your Commander in Chief.

“Your Country needs that information - now go get it!” “Whatever it takes.” “The gloves are off.”

“Yes, sir!”

(The profile goes on to note that, after the military determined he was innocent, this particular prisoner became a favored prisoner. It also includes a meditation about why this image, of all the images taken at Abu Ghraib, proved so iconic.)

No thought that, oh, this innocent prisoner ought to go free? That perfectly captures this administration’s Bush League notion justice, as does much that takes place at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Having captured and tortured an innocent victims is bad, the administration retains some hold on reality. But its primary concern is for its own political fortunes. It keeps innocents banged up, lest they reveal the administration’s flailing, usuriously expensive incompetence.

You noticed that, huh?

Calley didn’t have ‘the right stuff’ to Lead soldiers into the barbarity of combat, and bring them back with their honor and dignity intact.
. . .

I don’t know if she’s as banal as England, Harman or Beaver, but Wood, like Calley, certainly doesn’t have ‘the right stuff’ - the ability to tell right from wrong, even under fire - as a Leader. I guess that’s why she’s a Torturer…

Isn’t this the entirety of the question before us? How did we go so far off the tracks as a nation, to conflate honor and dignity with the savage abuse of untried civilians?

How did we forget the lessons of the Holocaust, of My Lai? How did these very events get turned upside down and used against others — look at how the Holocaust is now justification by a political faction for the utter and complete suppression and subjugation of an “other”? How did My Lai eventually yield a military that nearly wiped Fallujah off the map?

How is it that we stopped having conversations about real evil, genuine goodness, spending our time quibbling over blowjobs in the White House instead, so that people without any conscience and without social filters could take our country hostage?

How did all of us — a majority sufficient to elect an administration — lose the “right stuff”?

Little wonder the administration chose “enhanced interrogation”; the original German is so much more visceral: verschaefte Vernehmung.

I think this illustrates the administration’s revolutionary toujours de l’audace approach to “governance”. Consolidating a revolution requires that its new ways become banal. One way to do that is to force (via threats of ridicule, punishment or discharge) ordinary soldiers (England and Harman may have done extraordinary things, but the reasons they entered the military are commonplace) to regard them as ordinary conduct.

The success is immediate in that it elicits the desired conduct. It becomes lasting in the predictable need of these soldiers to defend their behavior when they do it the first time, the second and when they come home to civil society. The inevitable outcry from disclosure brings even greater efforts at self-defense, which are now buttressed by support from neighbors and friends. Which is then echoed on the national scene via the punditry of Kmiecs and Posners, Drudges and Limbaughs, and in Congress via thoughtless shouts to Support the Troops!, regardless of their behavior.

This administration is not effective at many things. It is startlingly competent at some, and not just in covering their own backsides.

Go after Addington and watch how fast he throws Bush and Cheney under the bus…he’s got “all” the dirt on them both.

Just routine, m’am. That couldn’t possibly be why you excerpted it in the first place, now could it?

Did this thread just jump over to FDL by mistake? We’re in the middle of Blue America with Greg Fischer right now. He’s running for Mitch McConnell’s seat in the Senate. ALSO a very important thing… hint, hint.

I think it’s some new functionality Jane tested the other day. It allows for cross posting and gives EW a front page on FDL but brings folks here. Kind of a hybrid.

10 - well, not much ambivalence from me, that’s for sure. I think Comey contributed some admiring observations for a USNews&WR piece on her. I think she’d be an interesting addition because she had much more power than the other three in her own fashion, but had even before 9/11 appeared to get it by being the same kind of sychophant Beaver was - Townsend was Beaver with the typical progression of that kind of response. Even the FISC barring her, as has been reported, didn’t derail her ability to cling to the powersuits and stay aloft.

9- Yes, but they only reason they had categories they could approve within is because the lawyers created them. It’s not that there isn’t all kinds of blame to go around, and all kinds of excuses for that matter. It’s that people said over and over, “I need the protection of a legal opinion” and DOJ handed them out. I’ve mentioned this story before, but a friend of mine got a call one day from a client at a bar wanting to know some legal ways he could beat someone up. Seriously. And you know what? If she had coughed up something, he’d have done it. Even Bush was only titular. The power Yoo and Addington and others were able to exercise was basically manipulating the Emperor’s thumb to up or down. I think that did the same for them as thinking up new abuses did for Beaver’s glassy eyed crew.

19 - It’s hard to remember this, thinking back, but when Calley went to trial, there was a lot surpressed from the media coverage in general, but even with the pictures of the dead and the stories of grabbing a toddler, crawling, crying, out of the killing ditch and tossing him back in and killing him, MOST people in the country thought Calley should walk. That’s where the national ambivalence took us then - after years and years of hearing that “those people” were all the enemy, the ones were were fighting “for” being indistinguishable from the ones we were fighting “against” Some of the EXACT same phrases that were used by the soliders at My Lai (and there were sexual assaults and rapes to fill out what happened there as well) have come from the soldiers involved in Haditha, in particular this one: The whole village was bad. Having heard it before, it was beyond sad and depressing to hear it again.

I really see Higazy’s case as the universe telling us exactly what to expect from a panicked application of coercion. Instead of learning from it - DOJ publically embraced the great job done by everyone involved.

You can almost always understand a panicked overreaction, a stressed bad call, a point in time when things just aren’t clear and you are willing to do things that horrify you later. The key being, “that horrify you later.” The DOJ, with tame media in tow, used every bit of its leadership and institutional integrity to make the “horrify you later” part go away; to assuage with legalizations and rationalizations, to dehumanize, to do all the things that everything we are taught tells us not to do, not to accept, not to participate in. And institutionally, there are no horrified voices. Not one. Direct institutional participation in kidnaps, tortures, childnapping, deaths, coverups, obstruction, etc. has generted massive and direct institutional acceptance and that institution sets the national standard.

JAG officers fought, resigned, lost their jobs and careers, and spoke out - diplomats resigned - DOJ stayed the course and still does. A military officer takes the stand and embraces waterboarding, and other military men immediately and publically resign and publically repudiates that position. Mukasey signals his support and his devotion to allowing criminal behaviour in the Executive Branch to be protected on all fronts, and not one DOJ lawyer does the same. Not one did the same at any point. For years now it’s been like watching a slinky going down the stairs - a jerky and uneven descent, but one where there has never been any indication of a trajectory that goes anywhere but down.

I’ll never be a philospher bc I don’t understand people that well. I dt tend to see things through the filter of the animals around me. Every day I get up and deal with 4 German shepherds acquired at different times and from different backgrounds and every day, no matter what happens, you have to reaffirm with them the rules. Every day, they learn and relearn to act acceptably, with respect for the 4 lb cat and the crippled goat and the child that reaches out to pet them. Every day, you have to reinforce that, whether or not the cat smacks them for no reason or the goat smells like prey waiting to be finished or the child accidentally pokes them in the eye, they have too much power to be allowed to respond in kind.

Every day, if you say - not today, I’m just not into making the rules stick today, every day the only thing that keeps the weak from being hurt or maimed or killed is the fact that you demand it. And eventually, that power unchecked causes injuries that can’t be healed leaves you with things that can’t be undone. You have to take responsiblity and once you abdicate that, there’s chaos.

I know that makes for an oversimplification that doesn’t factor in some of the issues, but I do understand the drives to conformity. It’s a l000 times harder to make the 4th dog stay back and not attack after you’ve allowed the first one, then the next, then the next. You don’t stop the attack by going after the Harmans and Englands, you stop it by making damn sure the leader of the pack knows that he/she is bound by the rule to not attack, before it happens. The DOJ opinions were the same as me leaning down and whispering in the ear of my high strung, aggressive, male - “get ‘em” It only takes a whisper.

One of the results of My Lai was the military stopped commissioning individuals without at least a Bachelor’s degree. I forget the specific rationale but I think the feeling was the better educated the individual, the less likely to perpetrate these types of horrors.

Wrong again.

but, but… we are in a fund-raising drive… don’t get me wrong. I LUUUUUURRRVE me some EW. Lord knows it’s true!

But…. we need to ditch mitch! and defeat the odious DINO that the DSCC is trying to shove down our throats.

It’s here.

Yes, I think Addington is the first one — not merely because he has the “dirt”, but because of his lack of filters.

Call me an opportunist, but we should take advantage of the very thing that they prized so much in Addington: his inability to put a brake on questions.

They asked him to solve problem “X”, and he did, without questioning the orders, just as England did, rolling over for Graner, rolling over for her chain of command.

This discussion is why this is my favorite blog - no nastiness - just an extremely intelligent laying out of various parts of an issue.

My own view of the torture issue is that humans have the ability to do bad things - e.g., torture other human beings. This is why we have rules/laws in place to prevent this kind of action.

In a purely military context (as a Naval Officer and DoD employee for 32 years), I have never met anyone who said torture would produce useful, truthful information. Therefore the restrictions on torture contained in the Geneva Conventions, etc., are there to try and put a set of rules in place that will present some level of safety for all people in a wartime situation. This is one of the things that has always frightened me during this torture discussion - don’t the people (Rumsfeld, Yoo, Addington, Cambone, etc.) understand what this does to our own people faced with a captured situation?

As to the Abu Ghraib case, it seems certain to me that the actions of the lower level perpetrators were caused by an atmosphere stemming from the policy - formal or INFORMAL - laid down from the top of the chain of command. This would never have happened without the ‘troops’ feeling they were doing what ‘the Brass’ wanted done - whether it was in writing or not. And we now find that a lot of the ‘policy’ was in writing.

Should all involved be punished - my answer is yes. The lower level ones have already received their punishment, but the rest of the chain still stands free. BGen Karpenski has been made a fall gal, but her higher ups have not faced a court.

IMHO, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Addinton, Yoo and many others in the military chain of command should be charged with crimes against humanity.

Oh, no. The government might thrice disavow Mr. Addington - the cock might crow, the heavens rend and the earth weep - but he would not disavow Mr. Cheney. And Mr. Cheney will not forsake him.

Mr. Addington also knows, and this administration’s radical behavior is built on that knowledge, that the Democrats would not stoop to the depths of the Bushies. Short of using its own methods of interrogation against it (which we know don’t elicit credible data), we might never know the extent of its criminality.

So Mr. Addington is safe to become a radical adviser for GOP candidates and administrations to follow. That is, unless a progressive administration actually reviewed its own records and, working with a progressive Congress, investigated and prosecuted the serial wrongs, evidence of which must litter the streets and hallways of Metro DC.

24 - that middle paragraph is the really summary of it all, isn’t it. And you can substitute others, like lawyers and members of Congress, for soldiers as well. The only thing I’d add would be the control over the media in the disclosure - drowning and redirecting than outcry with reinforcement.

Mary suggested a parallel profile of Fran Townsend. But I think one of Karpinski would be interesting as well.

Not that this is all about the women involved. Though when you tell the story from the women’s perspective, it sure reveals the gender largely mobilized in torture.

As to the Abu Ghraib case, it seems certain to me that the actions of the lower level perpetrators were caused by an atmosphere stemming from the policy - formal or INFORMAL - laid down from the top of the chain of command. This would never have happened without the ‘troops’ feeling they were doing what ‘the Brass’ wanted done - whether it was in writing or not. And we now find that a lot of the ‘policy’ was in writing.

But don’t you think the same atmosphere has pervaded our entire American culture? the lack of critical thinking and analysis manifested by a majority of Americans in the run-up to/during the sale of the Iraq War, for example, established a permissive tone and implicit consent for anything the White House wanted to do.

Yes, and I think that EW’s observations of him during the Libby trial show that he’ll just spill the beans and pass the buck. He has no conscience and ultimately no loyalty. He’s like a robot. His firewall though, would be Mukasey at this point, I would think…he’d never let testimony from Addington see the light of day, but if he advised the Admin to commit crimes…who knows…maybe the American Bar Association would be able to do something.

Not exactly:

Current Military

Eligibility:

Be a citizen of the United States.
Have a GT score of 110 or higher.
Pass the Army Physical Fitness Test score 180 (APFT). (Note: Must score at least a 60 in each area).
Pass the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), min 850 or American College Test (ACT), min 19 (Note: Not required if the soldier already possesses a bachelor or higher degree).
Have at least 90 semester hours of college study towards a degree and be able to complete your bachelors within one year.
Achieve a score of 80 or higher on the English Comprehension Level Test (ECLT), if primary language is not English.
Be at least 18 years old and less than 34 (can waiver age up to 39). Have a complete physical exam six months prior to date of application.
No more than 10 years’ active Federal Service at time of commission (can be waived).
Have no convictions by civil or military courts. (This does not apply to minor traffic violations with a fine or forfeiture of $250.00 or less). An applicant must not have been judged to be a juvenile offender. This applies even if the court sentence, or any part of it, was suspended or withheld, or such conviction was in any way removed from court records by satisfactory completion of a period of probation. This also applies to adverse juvenile adjudication. (Note: Some convictions can be waived).
Have completed advanced individual training (AIT)
Have had a type “A” medical examination within 9 months of the date of the application. Applicants must meet procurement medical fitness standards prescribed in AR 40-501, paragraph 8-14, and possess a physical profile serial of at least 222221.
Have not been previously disenrolled from officer candidate training.

Have at least 90 semester hours of college study towards a degree and be able to complete your bachelors within one year.

If they succeed in somehow convincing us torture is necessary, & a plus in the “WOT” bs, they convince the real hold outs. Damn them.

It may have changed or it may have been unofficial but when I was in ROTC, they were quite emphatic that no one without the degree would be commissioned.

On that day, Calley lost control, joined the madness himself, and - over 400 dead women, children and old men later - he claimed he was only following orders.

I disagree. He was ordered to kill anything that moved. His Company Co, Ernest Medina and Battalion Commander Frank Baker were just as guilt as “Rusty”. I am not trying to excuse Calley but it was typical bullshit when he was scapegoated.

AF right?

I think you certainly have a valid point. And I don’t claim that things happening in the general society don’t have a impact on the military society.

However, I still believe the set of rules governing the military society are more influenced by the chain of command within the military. And when you have people like the two star who commanded Gitmo coming in to show the Abu Ghraib people ‘how to do it’, the impact on the military is much stronger, IMHO.

I wind up enlisting in the AF but I went through the Army ROTC for the full 4 years. Was eventually “honorably discharged” from the program when we agreed to disagree. This was right after ‘Nam in ‘75, so they were looking for reasons to cut back and I gave ‘em a few. :})

He recognized her immediately, smiled, and said, “Great minds think alike.”

The Master race!

I think what was also suppressed at the time was the fear among professional and drafted officers alike that, “There but for the grace of God, go I”. Yes, Calley succumbed; who else might? And how does the atrocity of killing dozens of villagers stack up with the bureaucratic (dare I say, banal) lies of the early military leadership that “The war in Vietnam is going swimmingly, we’re winning”, which kept us there, all sides killing each other for years. Not to mention the deceptions revealed in the Pentagon Papers.

There is something wrong with the news ticker–every link takes me here to this post.

How does it stack up? It’s the the same thing.

Decades-old Pentagon records show that Army criminal investigators substantiated seven massacres of Vietnamese and Cambodian civilians by U.S. soldiers — in addition to the notorious 1968 My Lai massacre.

My bad: “career and drafted officers alike”. Professionalism is something else entirely.

Gotcha. Requirements do fluctuate. My grad work was on the GED and I looked at recruiting criteria and it changes according to need.

Not many draftees became officers, some, but not many.

If the state is corrupted how will status save anyone?

Forgive this OT please. This must be stopped:

“The Wall Street Journal said last week that the US war effort in Iraq must have a double goal.

“The US must recognise that Iran is engaged in a full-up proxy war against it in Iraq,” wrote the military analyst Kimberly Kagan.

There are signs that targeting Iran would unite American politicians across the bitter divide on Iraq. “Iran is the bull in the china shop,” said Ike Skelton, the Democrat chairman of the Armed Services Committee. “In all of this, they seem to have links to all of the Shi’ite groups, whether they be political or military.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new.....ran105.xml

the lack of critical thinking and analysis manifested by a majority of Americans in the run-up to/during the sale of the Iraq War, for example, established a permissive tone and implicit consent for anything the White House wanted to do.

This is what really worries me about “No Child Left Behind”: with its emphasis on math and reading skills (which are needed for the worker bees of business and industry), there’s not enough time left for teaching critical thinking skills in the high schools (which are needed for civics and an effective citizenry). Which is just what the Republicans want: worker bees, who don’t spend too much time thinking.

Bob in HI

McCain on TV giving a speech today: He wants to greatly expand the military, all americans should serve, wants to establish permanent bases (recruiting centers) at all colleges and universities in the country to continue Bush’s imperialistic foreign policy. Does’nt want to have a draft but it sounds like he still has it on the table.

God help us.

Sounds like “I don’t want to have a draft but I will if I have to.” He doesn’t care as long as he get to finish
Vietnam.

McCain should be asked if he is willing to draft members of the Bush family. If he say that he is, he should be asked why they have to be forced to serve.

I think she just did. Electing President Obama or President Hillary just got a whole lot easier.

Auspicious indeed.

Really…what drugs is he on…oh yeah, let’s see those health records Johnny boy???

(Andrew Sullivan complained about Kagan’s) academic credentials in linking to her assessment of the progress of the “surge” for the Weekly Standard. I should have disclosed that Kagan is the wife of Frederick Kagan, the principal author of the surge; and his brother is Bob Kagan, another pro-surge advocate and editor at the Weekly Standard, and they’re both sons of Donald Kagan, who is also a neoconservative intellectual. More to the point: Kimberly Kagan is listed as one of the participants in her husband’s research team that came up with the surge in the first place. So when the Weekly Standard decided to compile a regular report on the surge’s progress, they picked the wife of the main author and one of the plan’s original architects. And they never disclosed these relevant facts. So allow me.

http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/36524.html

I think you capture the mentality of the Cheney/Bush/Addington administration in a nutshell:

The DOJ opinions were the same as me leaning down and whispering in the ear of my high strung, aggressive, male [dog] - “get ‘em” It only takes a whisper.

“Never apologize!” “Tell ‘em to go Cheney themselves if they don’t like my pissing on the Constitution.” and “Who cares if I shoot straight, so long as I pull the trigger?”

I think what’s missing is “enlistees”, as in, “You can wait and be drafted, and enjoy your time on Paris Island. Or you can join up for a longer stint, and spend part of it at the Quantico country club.”

No slight intended on the work, or the skills acquired, but it filled the gap between career and draftee officers.

Great post, EW, and amazing discussion from all. I will do everything I can to disseminate, as soon as I can see through the tears.

Do young people learn about Nurem