As primary-election democracy unfolds, C.I.A. admits practicing torture
What a contrast in values: Even as millions of Americans made their way to polling stations today to exercise their right to vote (in primary elections to determine the major political parties' presidential candidates), in Washington, the C.I.A.'s director, General Michael Hayden was telling the Senate's intelligence committee that the spy agency indeed had practiced the torture technique known as "waterboarding" in the recent past. (As Musharrafesque as it may sound or appear, Hayden is both an active U.S. Air Force officer and the head of a government unit that describes itself as "an independent agency." He showed up before the Senate's committee wearing his military uniform.)
C.I.A. Director Michael Hayden, a U.S. Air Force general, appeared before the Senate's intelligence committee today; he admitted that the agency had practiced the "waterboarding" torture method
Hayden told the congressional body that, in 2002 and 2003, the C.I.A. had waterboarded al-Qaeda suspects Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (the assumed mastermind of the September 2001 attacks), Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The intelligence-agency chief said: "We used it against these three detainees because of the circumstances at the time....There was the belief that additional catastrophic attacks against the homeland were inevitable. And we had limited knowledge about al-Qaeda and its workings. Those two realities have changed." (Guardian)
Over time, so have the circumstances and the effects of George W. Bush's aimless "war on terror"; its egregious disregard for the rule of law as it has conflated fighting terrorism with cheerleading for what Bush has called "liberty" has made it possible and perhaps even likely that, if or when terrorists ever happen to get their hands on any American military personnel or civilians, they might, could or will torture them, too.
Agence France Presse reports that "Hayden's remarks were the first direct, official admission that [C.I.A.] interrogators had used 'waterboarding' in questioning 'war on terror' detainees. They came amid a long-running battle between the [Bush] administration and members of Congress over so-called enhanced or coercive interrogation techniques used by the C.I.A. Attorney General Michael Mukasey told Congress last week that the C.I.A. no longer uses 'waterboarding' and that it was not 'currently' an authorized interrogation technique." He refused to say whether or not waterboarding is or should be considered a form of torture.
In his testimony today, Hayden defended the C.I.A.'s habit of making up its own rules. The spy agency head said it "would make no more sense to apply the Army Field Manual to [the] C.I.A. - the Army Field Manual on interrogations - than it would be to take the Army Field Manual on grooming and apply it to my agency, or the Army Field Manual on recruiting and apply it to my agency, or, for that matter, take the Army Field Manual on sexual orientation and apply it to my agency."
Hayden said al-Qaeda suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - the assumed mastermind of the September 2001 attacks - was one of the detainees who had been tortured
In an op-ed piece in Le Monde, indirectly alluding to trends in the behavior of the U.S. government, its agencies and official representatives, commentator Daniel Vernet notes that all of the leading candidates who are now slugging it out to become the next American president have made leadership a central theme of their campaigns. Vernet points out that Democratic candidate Barack Obama has said that the United States "must lead the world by its acts and by its example." (Translation: Supposedly that kind of thinking would rule out any place for torture in the activities of any U.S.-government agency - depending, of course, on who's really in charge of such agencies.)
| February 05 2008 at 01:20 PM
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