After Obama praises torture ruling, civil liberties group appalled

John Byrne
Raw Story
Thursday, Feb 5, 2009

‘Hope is flickering,’ ACLU declares

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has generally been harshly critical of President George W. Bush and praiseworthy of President Barack Obama, has fired a torpedo across the Obama bow.

After the British High Court ruled that evidence of a British resident’s rendition and harsh interrogation at the Pentagon’s Guantanamo Bay prison must remain secret because of threats made by the Bush administration to halt intelligence sharing, the Obama Administration offered a terse statement seemingly expressing support to the BBC.

“The United States thanks the UK government for its continued commitment to protect sensitive national security information and preserve the long-standing intelligence sharing relationship that enables both countries to protect their citizens,” a spokesman said.

In response, the ACLU’s executive director, Anthony Romero, shot off a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking the Obama Administration to clarify their position. Romero also issued a sharply-worded three sentence statement to the press, saying Obama has now offered “more of the same.”

“Hope is flickering,” Romero said in a statement. “The Obama administration’s position is not change. It is more of the same. This represents a complete turn-around and undermining of the restoration of the rule of law. The new American administration shouldn’t be complicit in hiding the abuses of its predecessors.”

The ACLU called on Clinton to “reject the Bush administration’s policy of using false claims of national security to avoid judicial review of controversial programs.”

Romero’s letter to Clinton follows.

February 4, 2009



The Honorable Hillary Clinton
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20520
Re: Clarification Requested on Position of the United States on Blocking Disclosure by a British Court of Its Report on Allegations of Torture
Dear Secretary Clinton:



The American Civil Liberties Union strongly urges you to clarify the position of the United States on the publication of the full judgment in a lawsuit brought by a Guantanamo detainee, Binyam Mohamed, in a British court. Earlier today, the High Court in Great Britain published a judgment denying publication of its report detailing allegations of torture. The High Court stated that the United States had threatened that full publication of the court’s judgment would jeopardize intelligence cooperation between the two countries. Remarkably, the court reported that the British government claimed the U.S. position had not changed, despite the inauguration of President Barack Obama. We urgently request that you clarify the position of the United States in this matter.

Two of the British justices severely criticized the position of the United States in working to block publication of the judgment in the torture case. Lord Justice Thomas and Justice Lloyd Jones stated today that: Indeed, we did not consider that a democracy [the United States] governed by the rule of law would expect a court in another democracy to suppress a summary of the evidence contained in reports by its own officials … relevant to allegations of torture and cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment, politically embarrassing though it might be. We had no reason … to anticipate there would be made a threat of the gravity of the kind made by the United States Government that it would reconsider its intelligence-sharing relationship, when all the considerations in relation to open justice pointed to us providing a limited but important summary of the reports.

The court’s opinion specifically stated that attorneys for British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told the court that the United States’ threat on the effect of publication on intelligence cooperation was continued by the United States, despite the inauguration of President Obama.

Specifically, the justices stated that, “it was submitted to us by Mr. David Rose that the situation had changed significantly following the election of President Obama who was avowedly determined to eschew torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and to close Guantanamo Bay. We have, however, been informed by counsel for the Foreign Secretary that the position has not changed.”

The claims made by the British justices that the United States continues to oppose publication of the judgment in the Binyam Mohamed case–to the point of threatening the future of U.S.-British intelligence cooperation–seems completely at odds with both the anti-torture and transparency executive orders signed by the President. We strongly urge you to clarify the position of the United States and remove any threat related to the publication of the court’s full judgment.

Please let us know if you have any questions regarding this matter.

Sincerely,

Anthony D. Romero

Executive Director

Caroline Fredrickson

Director, Washington Legislative Office

cc: Joan Donoghue, Acting Legal Adviser

when I hear people talk about banning torture and other related items, for whatever reason, call it free association, a scene from the Tom and Jerry cartoons comes to mind. Remember the ones where the bulldog is chained up in the yard and Tom has done something to wake him up or tick him off somehow? Then the dog starts to chase the cat, but Tom knows the dog can only go so far in chasing him because he's tied down and the chain is only so long. So what does Tom do? of course.. he runs to a point just past the length of the chain and sits there laughing at the dog that would otherwise tear him to shreds if not for being chained down.

But I'm not condoning torute for torture's sake. I think it's pretty sick to tie someone down and drive bamboo shards undertheir fingernails or put cigarettes out on someone's face or hook them up to a car battery. One need only look the Spanish Inquisition to see that someone who is not guilty of witchcraft will admit to it to get the torutre to stop.

But I will say this. the reason Tom the Cat felt like he could operate with impunity in the presence of a killer dog was that knew the chain was only so long. Do you remember what happened when Jerry found a way to loosen the chain? Tom the Cat got his butt whooped.

So should we be torturing people? My morality says, 'No'.

But should we be advertising to the enemy the length of our chain?? Something tells me, 'No'..

Are there better ways or extracting information from people known to be our enemy? Possibly. I don't know. I gotta think there are but then again, I'm not in the intelligence gathering game either. I'd love to hear the professional opinion of someone who is, presuming he or she would be at liberty to discuss that sort of thing on an internet forum..

•Army Field Manual 34-52 Chapter 1 says:

"Experience indicates that the use of force is not necessary to gain the cooperation of sources for interrogation. Therefore, the use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear."


Former high-level CIA official Bob Baer said "And torture -- I just don't think it really works ... you don't get the truth. What happens when you torture people is, they figure out what you want to hear and they tell you."

Rear Admiral (ret.) John Hutson, former Judge Advocate General for the Navy, said "Another objection is that torture doesn't work. All the literature and experts say that if we really want usable information, we should go exactly the opposite way and try to gain the trust and confidence of the prisoners."

Michael Scheuer, formerly a senior CIA official in the Counter-Terrorism Center, said "I personally think that any information gotten through extreme methods of torture would probably be pretty useless because it would be someone telling you what you wanted to hear."

Dan Coleman, one of the FBI agents assigned to the 9/11 suspects held at Guantanamo said "Brutalization doesn't work. We know that. "

Former FBI Interrogator Jack Cloonan explains that regular interrogation tactics work well on even the worst terrorists, that there's no such thing as a "ticking timebomb" scenario, and that waterboarding has done much more harm than good.
This interrogater -- who interrogated Al Quaeda suspects -- says categorically that torture does not help collect intelligence, but that it does sell impressionable people on the legitimacy of jihad, on the grounds that a regime that tortures deserves to be attacked.

Retired Air Force Col. John Rothrock, who is no squishy liberal, says that he doesn't know "any professional intelligence officers of my generation who would think torture is a good idea."

Army Col. Stuart Herrington, a military intelligence specialist who conducted interrogations in Vietnam, Panama and Iraq during Desert Storm, and who was sent by the Pentagon in 2003 -- long before Abu Ghraib -- to assess interrogations in Iraq: Aside from its immorality and its illegality, says Herrington, torture is simply "not a good way to get information." In his experience, nine out of 10 people can be persuaded to talk with no "stress methods" at all, let alone cruel and unusual ones. Asked whether that would be true of religiously motivated fanatics, he says that the "batting average" might be lower: "perhaps six out of ten." And if you beat up the remaining four? "They'll just tell you anything to get you to stop."


Torture is certainly immoral, inhumane, and an illegal war crime. However, until people realize that it doesn't work, it will not stop, and those responsible will not be held accountable.

Kind of like the statement that you can catch more flies with honey?

I know nothing of such matters as military intelligence, but I do know that it has been shown repeatedly that information gathered by means of torture is unreliable. People will say anything to make the torture stop.

If I ride by and see you being beaten or robbed I will stop to help..IF YOU ARE A MEMBER OF THE ACLU BE ADVISED TO TELL ME SO I WILL PUT UP MY GUN AND LEAVE SO THAT I DONT INFRINGE ON YOUR LEGAL RIGHT TO DEFEND YOURSELF....In turn please stop infringeing upon my right to be protected from terrorism by any means necessary.............THANK YOU JOE THE CARPENTER