Paul BoudreauThe Wars of Error
November 18th 2010 20:18
:
George W. Bush CBS interview segment the third (and fourth)
Hi Again,
So we've reached the midpoint of this interview (and my review thereof). Sorry if this is seeming a little drawn out. If you think it's bad for you, I've been watching this tripe in my spare time for the last week. Think on that.
When we left off last, Matt Lauer had just finished getting George W. to detail his emotional rollercoaster in the immediate of the September 11th attacks. We heard him expressing, if not necessarily in so many words, his move from confusion and a feeling of being overwhelmed to anger and then the aggressive belligerence the world was going to come to know so well. Which brings us to the topics of these next two segments, namely the acting out of that aggression on a grand scale. In specific, this took the manifestation of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the affiliated programs (i.e. illegal wiretapping, rendition, secret prisons, torture, and other assorted civil and human rights violations) known collectively as the War on Terror.
The segment begins with the now frustrating familiar "Bush tells a self serving anecdote while Lauer nods and makes him look presidential" formula. W. tells a story about an alleged video call from Dick Cheney reporting one of the many false terror alarms, and of the impact it had on the several West Wing staff who were traveling with Bush in China at the time. The alert had to do with a possible use of Botulin toxin to poison the White House air supply. The nervous jokes about testing on mice aside, the constant bombardment of Bush with these threats, as he insisted on being kept informed at early stages before the various agencies in charge had time to investigate or put threats or intelligence in perspective (i.e. seeking the raw and unfiltered reports on issues such as Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and cherry picking the results of this raw data search to find facts to suit his purpose.) was to have tumultuous consequences throughout this phase of his presidency in several ways.
First, it created or enhanced the bunker mentality that all Americans were experiencing for the first time. An enemy had revealed itself and shown it was both willing and able to strike at targets on American shores. Suddenly the half baked threats and chatter that previously would have been evaluated and investigated before being brought to the President's attention were now piling up directly on his desk unfiltered. This created the impression (somewhat valid I'm sure, but gravely overblown as well due to the volume of chatter generated by the enthusiasm among Islamic radicals following the temporary success of 9/11, and the anger generated by the events that followed it.) that there were many enemies, all over the place, and they were all hatching viable plans to threaten the nation. This in turn led the President to the knee-jerk reaction that all and any means available needed to be used to seek out and destroy these plots immediately with the greatest expediency possible. Which, in turn, led to the disastrous decision to begin the practice of water-boarding and other acknowledged forms of physically (wall standing, "stress position", sleep deprivation etc.) and psychologically (verbal abuse, humiliation, threats etc.) abusive forms of interrogation which would, by most standards in the world (including those of the United States prior to 9/11) have been considered torture. In the interview, Bush asserts that his greatest fear was of another attack on America, and that the use of these techniques was justified in the fact that such an attack did not occur. I wholeheartedly disagree for the reasons that:
a) It is impossible to prove a negative. It cannot be proven that the information gleaned from the interrogative sessions (183 uses of water-boarding with captured Al Qaeda operative Khalid Sheik Mohammed, 80 with Osama Bin Laden's DRIVER Abu Zubaydah, among numerous other mostly undisclosed uses of the techniques mentioned above, not including the handing over of subjects to pliant allied nations with less concern for civil right under C.I.A. supervision via the practice of extraordinary rendition) revealed details about any imminent plot to attack the United States or anywhere else. However, even if it were possible to prove this, this proof would have to show that it (the information) could not have been obtained in any other way, that the information had to be gathered in such an expedient fashion that no other method could be attempted, that the investigators knew with certainty that the subject had the specific information that they sought (i.e. no fishing expeditions) and that the information definitely halted a credible threat against the U.S. or one of its allies, just for the doctrine of the ends justifying the means to work out. These qualifiers have never been satisfied, to my knowledge, with regards to the use of water-boarding against these subjects. No one has been allowed to know the realities of the use of torture at rendition sites, and their victims are to this day secret.
and
b) After the Nuremburg and Tokyo trials following the Second World War the notion that a domestic legal opinion could invalidate international conventions in regard to the treatment of foreign nationals or to domestic subjects was wholeheartedly rejected by the international community, with Justice Robert Jackson of the United States leading the way. The rejection of the defense that the Nuremburg Laws of 1935 not only permitted but legally required persecution of the Jews forms a clear precedent of this, as does the prosecution of German officers who executed Soviet political officers attached to Soviet military units under the so called "Commissars Order" which declared that these officers were non--military and thus exempt from Geneva protection. The unilateral voiding of these statutes via internal legal opinion is a direct abrogation of a nations treaty obligations under them and should be regarded as what it is. A criminal act (tracing all the way up the chain of command to the man who, willingly and proudly in these interviews, admitted to ordering and justifying them.) committed in the time of war. A War Crime. If the world is serious about prosecuting them anywhere, it must do so at home first, beginning with those responsible. This includes Bush, V.P. Dick Cheney, the C.I.A. officers who oversaw the program, Jay Bybee, John Yoo and the other Justice Department officials who oversaw the program of justification on the legal side, and any others who had official knowledge and were unwilling to put a stop to it. The fact that George W. Bush openly admits in this interview that he would willingly do it again only makes it more imperative that a message on this issue be sent as soon as possible.
Before I move on to a direct discussion of the wars themselves and the part they play in the interview, I just have to say that this may be Matt Lauer's strongest portion of the interview. He pushes Bush at points to justify his decision, and gets him to repeat indefensible statements about doing it again and standing behind torture. He forces Bush to his first major dodge by asking whether he believes that the techniques he approved would be appropriate to use on Americans by foreign nations, eliciting an old-school bush style straw-man deflection, namely that it was a decision and let people make up for themselves, he just wants people to read the book. Lauer gets back some of the respect he's lost to this point as an interviewer.
As I suspected, this post has gone on a little longer than intended. The topic, as I'm sure you noticed, was more than a little tender with me even to this day. The abuse of power and use of torture in the Bush Administration to me represent on of the greatest crimes against humanity so far in the 21st century (how's that for hyperbole... eat your heart out Glenn Beck), and the refusal of the American people and justice system, as well as the international community, to both repudiate and prosecute them represent an embarrassment to the ideals at the foundation of the whole concept of mutual respect, cooperation and security that the Rule of Law and Democracy rest upon. If we cannot recognize and acknowledge these abuses here, we have no right to criticize other nations for committing them. Stones in glass houses. That Is all I'm going to say about it (today) and, as you may have guessed, I'm going to leave the rest of this segment for my next post. Or maybe the post after that. Watching this interview over and over is giving a whole new (and literal) meaning to the phrase ad nauseum.
So maybe I'll right about something else next.
We'll find out together.
PSB
So we've reached the midpoint of this interview (and my review thereof). Sorry if this is seeming a little drawn out. If you think it's bad for you, I've been watching this tripe in my spare time for the last week. Think on that.
When we left off last, Matt Lauer had just finished getting George W. to detail his emotional rollercoaster in the immediate of the September 11th attacks. We heard him expressing, if not necessarily in so many words, his move from confusion and a feeling of being overwhelmed to anger and then the aggressive belligerence the world was going to come to know so well. Which brings us to the topics of these next two segments, namely the acting out of that aggression on a grand scale. In specific, this took the manifestation of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the affiliated programs (i.e. illegal wiretapping, rendition, secret prisons, torture, and other assorted civil and human rights violations) known collectively as the War on Terror.
The segment begins with the now frustrating familiar "Bush tells a self serving anecdote while Lauer nods and makes him look presidential" formula. W. tells a story about an alleged video call from Dick Cheney reporting one of the many false terror alarms, and of the impact it had on the several West Wing staff who were traveling with Bush in China at the time. The alert had to do with a possible use of Botulin toxin to poison the White House air supply. The nervous jokes about testing on mice aside, the constant bombardment of Bush with these threats, as he insisted on being kept informed at early stages before the various agencies in charge had time to investigate or put threats or intelligence in perspective (i.e. seeking the raw and unfiltered reports on issues such as Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and cherry picking the results of this raw data search to find facts to suit his purpose.) was to have tumultuous consequences throughout this phase of his presidency in several ways.
First, it created or enhanced the bunker mentality that all Americans were experiencing for the first time. An enemy had revealed itself and shown it was both willing and able to strike at targets on American shores. Suddenly the half baked threats and chatter that previously would have been evaluated and investigated before being brought to the President's attention were now piling up directly on his desk unfiltered. This created the impression (somewhat valid I'm sure, but gravely overblown as well due to the volume of chatter generated by the enthusiasm among Islamic radicals following the temporary success of 9/11, and the anger generated by the events that followed it.) that there were many enemies, all over the place, and they were all hatching viable plans to threaten the nation. This in turn led the President to the knee-jerk reaction that all and any means available needed to be used to seek out and destroy these plots immediately with the greatest expediency possible. Which, in turn, led to the disastrous decision to begin the practice of water-boarding and other acknowledged forms of physically (wall standing, "stress position", sleep deprivation etc.) and psychologically (verbal abuse, humiliation, threats etc.) abusive forms of interrogation which would, by most standards in the world (including those of the United States prior to 9/11) have been considered torture. In the interview, Bush asserts that his greatest fear was of another attack on America, and that the use of these techniques was justified in the fact that such an attack did not occur. I wholeheartedly disagree for the reasons that:
a) It is impossible to prove a negative. It cannot be proven that the information gleaned from the interrogative sessions (183 uses of water-boarding with captured Al Qaeda operative Khalid Sheik Mohammed, 80 with Osama Bin Laden's DRIVER Abu Zubaydah, among numerous other mostly undisclosed uses of the techniques mentioned above, not including the handing over of subjects to pliant allied nations with less concern for civil right under C.I.A. supervision via the practice of extraordinary rendition) revealed details about any imminent plot to attack the United States or anywhere else. However, even if it were possible to prove this, this proof would have to show that it (the information) could not have been obtained in any other way, that the information had to be gathered in such an expedient fashion that no other method could be attempted, that the investigators knew with certainty that the subject had the specific information that they sought (i.e. no fishing expeditions) and that the information definitely halted a credible threat against the U.S. or one of its allies, just for the doctrine of the ends justifying the means to work out. These qualifiers have never been satisfied, to my knowledge, with regards to the use of water-boarding against these subjects. No one has been allowed to know the realities of the use of torture at rendition sites, and their victims are to this day secret.
and
b) After the Nuremburg and Tokyo trials following the Second World War the notion that a domestic legal opinion could invalidate international conventions in regard to the treatment of foreign nationals or to domestic subjects was wholeheartedly rejected by the international community, with Justice Robert Jackson of the United States leading the way. The rejection of the defense that the Nuremburg Laws of 1935 not only permitted but legally required persecution of the Jews forms a clear precedent of this, as does the prosecution of German officers who executed Soviet political officers attached to Soviet military units under the so called "Commissars Order" which declared that these officers were non--military and thus exempt from Geneva protection. The unilateral voiding of these statutes via internal legal opinion is a direct abrogation of a nations treaty obligations under them and should be regarded as what it is. A criminal act (tracing all the way up the chain of command to the man who, willingly and proudly in these interviews, admitted to ordering and justifying them.) committed in the time of war. A War Crime. If the world is serious about prosecuting them anywhere, it must do so at home first, beginning with those responsible. This includes Bush, V.P. Dick Cheney, the C.I.A. officers who oversaw the program, Jay Bybee, John Yoo and the other Justice Department officials who oversaw the program of justification on the legal side, and any others who had official knowledge and were unwilling to put a stop to it. The fact that George W. Bush openly admits in this interview that he would willingly do it again only makes it more imperative that a message on this issue be sent as soon as possible.
Before I move on to a direct discussion of the wars themselves and the part they play in the interview, I just have to say that this may be Matt Lauer's strongest portion of the interview. He pushes Bush at points to justify his decision, and gets him to repeat indefensible statements about doing it again and standing behind torture. He forces Bush to his first major dodge by asking whether he believes that the techniques he approved would be appropriate to use on Americans by foreign nations, eliciting an old-school bush style straw-man deflection, namely that it was a decision and let people make up for themselves, he just wants people to read the book. Lauer gets back some of the respect he's lost to this point as an interviewer.
As I suspected, this post has gone on a little longer than intended. The topic, as I'm sure you noticed, was more than a little tender with me even to this day. The abuse of power and use of torture in the Bush Administration to me represent on of the greatest crimes against humanity so far in the 21st century (how's that for hyperbole... eat your heart out Glenn Beck), and the refusal of the American people and justice system, as well as the international community, to both repudiate and prosecute them represent an embarrassment to the ideals at the foundation of the whole concept of mutual respect, cooperation and security that the Rule of Law and Democracy rest upon. If we cannot recognize and acknowledge these abuses here, we have no right to criticize other nations for committing them. Stones in glass houses. That Is all I'm going to say about it (today) and, as you may have guessed, I'm going to leave the rest of this segment for my next post. Or maybe the post after that. Watching this interview over and over is giving a whole new (and literal) meaning to the phrase ad nauseum.
So maybe I'll right about something else next.
We'll find out together.
PSB
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